


Neither Can Floods Drown

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Series: i feel god in this kentucky tonight [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Religious, Anal Sex, Angels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Appalachia, Biblical References, Breaking Up & Making Up, Family Fluff, Fights, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Kentucky!Louis, Louis believes in God but not religion; Harry believes in religion but not God, M/M, Natural Disasters, Past Relationship(s), Post-Break Up, Prayer, Reconciliation, Religion, Small Towns, The South, floods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 58,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8229943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: Louis has built a pretty decent life for himself in his hometown. He has his work, he has his best friends, he has his family, he has his church. Over the past three years, he's learned to live with heartbreak. Things are going well.That's when he gets the news that He Who Must Not Be Named is coming back to town. That's when the flood comes, crashing in over the valley. That's when everything changes.It may not be the apocalypse, but Louis's world still feels like it's ending.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This fic turned into a fucking MONSTER when I wasn't looking, which I guess is what happens when Kentucky!Louis is your everything. I hope all of y'all like it!
> 
> It wouldn't be what it is today without the help and handholding of some of my VERY DEAR friends. Namra the patient and benevolent, who endures me sending over the links to everything I write and begging for any kind of feedback, regardless of ship (at least this one is a ship you love, eh Namra?), any time I add more than a sentence - you're my rock and I love you, thank you for reassuring me every ten minutes that this was okay. Jessi the encouraging and enduring, who allowed me to yell that I was going to delete everything every other night and would tell me not to be ridiculous and that at least some people besides me could maybe be interested in more Kentucky!Louis - you're a godsend and I love you, too, thank you for being my novena writing buddy over the past few months and for talking me out of that one eleventh-hour plot twist I was seriously considering. Thanks also to Jasmine for the encouragement and support, as well!
> 
> This is a lot of words and not a lot of fic. So, uh. Here we go! 
> 
> And before you start - I put together a ficmix that is both atmospheric for this story and also a sort of musical retelling _of_ the story. You can find it [here](http://8tracks.com/dulosis/waters-cannot-quench). I hope you listen and that you like it! Be warned, though - there are spoilery annotations on the songs.

It's sweltering outside the post office, humidity hanging low over the valley and making every single one of Louis's movements feel like he's slogging through hot syrup. 

It's not even eight o'clock in the fucking morning. 

Louis had thought he might indulge in taking the train in to Blue Heron - folks visiting the area tend to move slower in the thick, hot summer days, and the ticket office doesn't open till nine - but the mere thought of the press of _any_ human bodies against him in the car in this heat makes him queasy, so he climbs into his busted-up pickup and gingerly pinches his seatbelt and guides it to the buckle, trying to avoid death by searing-hot metal.

The A/C doesn't really work - it smells like fish and only half-heartedly churns out tepid air on a good day - so he cranks his windows down, manfully resists sending up a prayer or two that the engine will turn, and sticks his key in the ignition. 

The car starts, and Louis tamps down on a prayer of thanks and speeds toward work. The roads to Blue Heron are narrow, hilly and winding, and he enjoys the swooping in his stomach as he flies over the bumps and narrowly avoids hitting a pack of tourist hikers paused halfway around a turn.

Niall is already in the Information building when Louis gets there, because Niall is always already in the Information building when Louis gets there. For all that the majority of his summer is spent indoors, answering the questions of overheated and loud families in the Info building or selling bait at Bobby's tackle shop, his nose is sunburnt and peeling. 

There's a uniform for working for Big South Fork but Niall, being Niall, has obviously gotten around it. They're very nearly in Volunteers country, but he's got his Wildcats snapback smashed backwards on his head, official polo shirt sleeves rolled up to his shoulders. He always maintains that although Big South Fork extends past the state border into Tennessee, he doesn't work in that part, and it's his job to keep the city folk from up Lexington way pacified. Management doesn't go for it, but then again, Management doesn't go for much - that's Fletcher's enduring legacy, even now, nearly ten years since he's faded from relevance. 

Still, they haven't fired Niall yet, so that's something.

"You'd burn less if you turned that hat around," Louis says, pushing past the brochure kiosks and swinging around behind the desk. He heaves a sigh of relief as he sits down. At this stage of summer, the window unit behind the desk doesn't do jack shit for cooling the air, but it does provide a bit of a breeze and it absolutely does suck out the humidity, and that, in and of itself, is a blessing. 

If Louis were a praying man, he'd have a word with God about it.

Niall cackles. He doesn't punch Louis hello, because he understands the importance of keeping your body heat to yourself at this stage of summer, but he does waggle his eyebrows. "You'd sit a lot easier if you got that stick out of your ass," he says. 

Louis flips Niall the bird, which makes Niall laugh even harder. "You're the college kid," Louis says. "Shouldn't you know better?" He doesn't have to clarify what, exactly, he's referring to - they've had this exact conversation at least twenty times this summer alone. There's a certain sense of relief to the familiar, to the rhythm of a repeated conversation, and Louis indulges in it whenever he can.

Niall shrugs, unconcerned. "By the time I get skin cancer, there'll be a cure," he says. "I know this because I'm a college kid."

"Sure you do; I'll bet they teach a lot of science in them music classes you take," Louis says, like he always does. He throws the half-empty sunscreen Shelly keeps under the desk at him. It's been used pretty exclusively by him and Niall; he's not sure that Mary has so much as touched it since last summer. They'll have to replace it when it's gone, probably. "Postpone the inevitable for me, why don't you."

"Only because it's cute, how much you love me," Niall says, like he always does, and he slathers some sunscreen on his face, even though he's going to be inside at least till lunchtime.

+++

Louis's life has a certain rhythm to it, a certain unfailing degree of repetition, and he likes that. In the summers, he swelters in Blue Heron, sitting behind the Information booth and dealing with heat-cranky kids and their crankier parents, fibbing to the cuter visitors about the history of the town and dredging up the piles of actual knowledge he's resentfully learned about the place for the history buffs. A lot of his time in summer is spent telling people where to find the bathrooms or when the next train leaves or apologizing for the lack of air conditioning in the ghost buildings. For the third week of each summer month, he moves to the company store in Barthell for the live-history re-enactments, playing the government man taking the scrips in from the hapless miners. When his boss tells him to, he also just picks up the slack at Barthell and gives a few personal tours.

And on Thursday nights, he and Niall and Liam get together and play traditional music on the dinner train. This year, Niall's picked up the dulcimer and left the banjo behind, which is wicked. He's taught Louis a little bit of it, helping Louis curve his hands around it in just the right way to coax beautiful sounds from the aged wood. It reminds Louis, hauntingly, of a time he'd rather forget, back in high school before - well. Before, when they were five and He Who Must Not Be Named taught Louis the guitar and He Who Occasionally Must Not Be Named, Depending On Louis's Mood taught Louis the fiddle, because they could afford lessons. 

Niall had taught him banjo, but Niall hadn't had lessons, either. He was saving up for college, and self-taught himself every instrument he could lay his hands on. 

Louis really likes Thursdays, Niall's voice cracking out beside him layered against Liam's low hum and the twang of their strings. The windows on the train are almost always opened, which provides enough of a breeze, and they get free dinner for their efforts once the train pulls back into Stearns.

On Sundays, Louis grits his teeth and goes to church, partly because it's expected of him and partly because his mama and her latest husband bring his sisters and his little baby brother to church, and he loves his mama and his sisters and his little baby brother nearly as much as he distrusts the preacher, Pastor Parrish, and he spends his entire time closing his ears to all but the angriest parts of the sermon and glaring, balefully, at the altar and carefully not praying for anything. 

Resentful Sundays at church are really his only constant from summer to winter. As soon as the heat reaches its zenith, Niall packs up and goes back to Lexington to learn more instruments and techniques and theories and take his shirt off and paint himself blue for every game and go to one of them big fancy churches in town. During the school year, Louis's familiar conversations with Niall turn to Niall asking Louis to come up for a game sometime and Louis inevitably demuring, throat thick with misplaced jealousy, talking about the sleet in the forecast and his shitty tires and his failing brakes. He works at the Cumberland Falls gift shop, just across the county line, during winter - the trains don't run to Blue Heron once the first snow falls and Barthell just plain shuts down, but the Falls get people who hope to see the moonbow even when it's freezing cold out.

During Thanksgiving and Christmas each of the four years since high school ended for the guy, regardless of Louis's actual feelings towards the him, Louis allows himself to exchange several texts with He Who Must Not Be Named, Depending On Louis's Mood. He never says _I get why you left_ , because that's a dumbass thing to say when Zayn couldn't handle the close-minded folk in McCreary County on a level that Louis, who has his own reasons to chafe at their social dictates, could never fully experience or understand, but he also never says _I forgive you for leaving me behind_ , because the small angry boy inside of him can never forgive anyone for leaving him behind. 

On his birthday, Christmas Eve, Louis goes out drinking with Liam and Niall in the next county over and allows himself the time between his first and second shots to miss He Who Must Not Be Named.

He can't set his watch by his schedule, but it's familiar and that's what matters. 

There's no need to pray when you don't get surprises.

+++

"Yo, Tommo," Niall says, over the tinkle of the bell at the hunting store. It's not what Louis would call a real job - his latest stepdad owns the store, though, and he takes shifts whenever he needs a little extra cash.

Louis finishes ringing up the woman in front of him. "Nialler," he greets, once she's walked off with her box of shot.

"We're going camping this weekend!" Niall says. He stretches, the cut-out arms on his shirt drooping nearly to his navel even as it rides up. "You and me. Not Payno, he's got a thing with that girl over in Pine Knot." He rolls his eyes, as if to say _what a loser_. 

"It's suppose to get up to 109 this weekend," Louis observes.

"We'll hike to a waterfall! Jump in whenever we get warm," Niall says. "We haven't had a good dip this summer yet."

"I'm not cooking a single damned thing," Louis warns. There's no reason to protest going camping - once Niall's decided a trip is in order, the trip happens, come hell or high water. It's regular enough, most summers, that Louis isn't taken aback by it anymore. But it's way too hot for fire, even if it's just a propane stove. And it's never just a propane stove.

"You never cook a single damned thing," Niall laughs. 

"Then I guess we're going camping this weekend," Louis says. 

Niall wanders down the outfitting aisles. "Think we should bring some WD-40 again this time?"

"What are you trying to do, burn down the entire fucking forest?" Louis calls back. But it's been a rainy summer, in a big way, and he does love huge fires.

Except the heat.

Except the fire.

"Maybe just two cans."

Niall laughs. "I can bring the fishing rods?"

"The two times we've caught fish in the past four years, we done thrown them back," Louis says. "I prefer the other white meat."

"Hot dogs are pink, dumbass," Niall says. He emerges from the aisles with two roadside flares and a box of bullets. 

"I'm not selling those to you, man," says Louis. He's absolutely going to sell them to Niall, and he's absolutely going to use them too. "I know what you're going to do with them and Sheriff Cowell said he wouldn't abide by that anymore." Sheriff Cowell always says that, though, but he always looks the other way.

Niall rolls his eyes. "You do it just as much as me," he says, which is uncategorically true.

"Not when it's this hot out, I don't," says Louis, which is uncategorically false. 

"Look," says Niall. "When in the world has traffic light season been anything but the Glorious Fourth? And all them other holidays."

"At least get bullets that'll fit your fucking gun," Louis says. "Unless you got a new one and didn't tell me."

"Just testing you," Niall says. He tosses the box up and, miraculously, catches it. He reminds Louis, "Fourth's in a week, you know."

The door jangles, and someone walks in. Louis raises an eyebrow at Niall, who nods and disappears back in the shelves to replace the box. 

It's not like they shoot out the traffic light _that_ often; Louis's last stepdad worked for the town and once took the price of the light Louis was caught responsible for out of his already-stingy allowance. He doesn't want to beggar Stearns. And it's not like they ever shoot out the red light - that was all Niall's big brother, back in the day, and ever since the oldest of his little sisters got her learner's permit, Louis has put his foot down on continuing that particular tradition. 

Niall waits for the guy to leave, then comes forward with the road flares, a tarp, and the right box of bullets. "Friday, after work," he says, as Louis rings him up. "You, me, this tarp, and the biggest fucking fire in the county."

"You sure know how to romance a guy," Louis says, fluttering his lashes at Niall.

Niall rolls his eyes. "You know I'm saving myself for Justin Bieber," he says, primly. Louis's laughter follows him out of the store.

+++

"I just want it to go on record that it's way too fucking hot to go camping," Louis says.

"You can fill out a comment card," says Niall. "And then shove it right up your ass."

"I'm not certain that's the quote," Louis says. Niall ignores him, which is Niall's prerogative, Louis supposes. 

"Driver picks the music," Niall says, and turns on the pop station. "Whiner gets a nap."

"I don't think that's the quote, either," Louis says. He switches the station to something more acceptable. The Eagles are playing, so Niall lets it lie. "Yknow, we could always just crash Liam's date instead."

"That would make us officially sad," says Niall. "The lamest of lame. I'm not ready to accept that title."

"So we're going to use -" Louis pulls the cannister of WD-40 out of Niall's glove box and reads the label out loud and counting off the printed bullet points on his fingers. "A multi-use product that stops squeaks, drives out moisture, cleans and protects, loosens rusted parts, and frees sticky mechanisms, all while being CAUTION, EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE, to burn down the entire Daniel Boone National fucking Forest instead."

"Nah, just like, the tiniest bit of it," Niall says. "Anyway, you're the pyro of the two of us."

"I'm a pyro when it isn't hotter than Satan's asscrack outside."

"You get wimpier every year."

Driver or no, Louis pulls Niall into a brief headlock at that. "You take that back!"

"You fuck!" Niall says, swerving half-across the road before he can right himself. "Okay, okay, fine. No wimp would attempt full-on vehicular suicide. You're the manliest man who ever manned."

"Thank you," Louis says, sitting back in his seat, satisfied. 

It may be too hot to go camping, but Niall drives him down an old logging trail by one of the zillions of streams criss-crossing their way to the Cumberland until they can't get any further, then hikes them the last quarter-mile or so that it takes them to reach a decently sized shaded waterfall. They don't bother pitching the tent yet - they both know Louis isn't going to help out at all with that one - just strip down to their boxers and jump on into the stream. It's a couple feet deep and lukewarm in the sun, but refreshingly cold closer to the waterfall, and once they're sufficiently cooled off, they race each other back to Niall's Jeep to get all of their shit.

Louis lounges on a lawn chair while Niall sets the tent up in the little clearing next to the base of the waterfall until Niall swats him with a wet towel and makes him start gathering a circle of stones to contain their fire. 

They load the fire pit up with as much wood as they can find - wet _and_ dry; the glory of WD-40 is that it'll set literally anything alight - and Louis gets his Bic out of his crumpled pack of smokes. He lights one, takes a few drags and then passes it over to Niall, who takes a few of his own and then pitches it onto the wood.

The fire roars into life, oppressively hot with the sun still hanging low in the sky.

"Not our best one ever," Niall says, eyeing the blaze critically.

"It's definitely top ten, though," Louis contends. 

"I suppose we _would_ be fully roasted if it were any bigger," Niall agrees. He gestures Louis over and they haul the cooler and a paper shopping bag over from the pile of crap they lugged in.

There's about four packages of hot dogs inside the cooler, buns and condiments tucked underneath. The rest of the cooler is beer, which they had to go out-of-county to buy. The bag has a couple of potatoes that Niall's gone ahead and wrapped in foil, marshmallows, and a jar of the rotgut Bobby brews behind the bait shop. 

"No vegetables," Louis says, approvingly.

"That's what the ketchup and relish is for," Niall says, simply. "Tomatoes and cucumbers, right?"

"Exactly," Louis grins. He Who Must Not Be Named would've hated this, which makes Louis love it all the more.

Niall opens a can of beer and tosses another at Louis. "You complain," he says, "But this really is the life."

"When have I ever fucking complained," Louis demands. This, too, is a conversation they've had before, but Louis relishes in the familiarity and camaraderie. 

"We should probably drink most of this tonight," Niall continues, as if Louis didn't say a damned thing. "I mean, if we were going to get back in time for church Sunday."

"Who says we're going to church Sunday?"

"When have you ever fucking missed church on Sunday?" Niall asks. 

"Whatever," Louis says. He hates church, but he'll never miss it. He's read his Bible. He'll pay his lip service. God may be a canker sore on the face of the firmament of heaven, but Louis isn't going to fuck around on the letter of His law. He may not pay attention in church, but if he goes, he doesn't have to be surprised by shifts in the community favor. When the voices raise up louder, he can tune in to the lies the preacher is telling about the Word of God and be prepared for whatever worst is coming his way.

If he goes, he doesn't have to pray about it.

Louis is already pretty drunk by the time they rip into one of the packages of hot dogs. He skewers a few on sticks they've pulled from nearby trees - green still, so they won't catch fire as easy, and whittled to more of a point with Niall's illegal switchblade.

"Bro," he says, glancing over at Niall as his dog chars over the fire, the skin of it cracking in the flame, grease spurting out and slicking the casing deliciously. He notices something, and promptly forgets what he was going to say. "You're sunburned in so many places, dude."

"Thanks, Lou, I had no idea," Niall says, rolling his eyes. He's matched Louis beer for beer, swig of rotgut for swig of rotgut, but he's clearly less drunk than Louis is. It's entirely un-fucking-fair, is what it is.

"Your neck is burnt, bro," Louis says, laughing so hard he nearly drops his stick. "You're literally a redneck."

"Tell me something I haven't known my whole entire life," Niall says, laughing as well. He sings a line of Tracy Byrd's: "I'm from the country and I like it that way."

"Yeah, yeah," Louis says. He drags his hot dog from the fire and wraps a bun around it to pull it free from the skewer. Niall wordlessly passes over the ketchup, mustard, pimento cheese, and relish, and Louis slathers them all on and takes a huge bite. 

It isn't until the second night, hangovers wearing thin as they splash lazily in the creek and share cigarettes, that Niall clears his throat. They've just moved to their lawn chairs to air dry. Niall's made noises about fishing, but Louis doesn't remember so much as packing the rods in Niall's jeep. "So anyway. Louis."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Thought I'd bring you out here to give you a heads up, actually." Niall's not meeting his eyes at all - he's staring at the way water is beading down his legs, clinging to the dark hairs there and then dripping into the soft dirt on the ground. 

"Nialler, you're making me nervous," Louis says. "Out with it."

"Well," Niall says. "You know July tenth."

"The one in a week and a half? Yeah," Louis says. "What's special about it? Are you fucking leaving me for summer school? Trying to get a head start on senior year?"

"Not exactly," Niall says. "You know Ha - He Who Must Not Be Named?"

Louis's whole body freezes up immediately. "I do not know that man," he says, tersely. "I absolutely do not know that man."

"Well, that's good," Niall says. He sounds like that is the opposite of good. "Because he's coming back then."

"No," Louis says, fists clenching. He doesn't remember standing up. He doesn't remember moving at all, but his chair is knocked over backwards at his feet and creek water is trickling down his legs from his boxers and the ragged edges of his nails are cutting little half-moons into the palms of his hands. "Absolutely not, no he isn't."

"You know how we," Niall gestures between the two of them with a finger, "never talk about how sometimes me and him email? Well. I really do genuinely hate to break it to you, but he is."

"No," Louis says, dumbly. "No, he can't, I won't allow it, I'll -" He cuts himself off. He's halfway through a prayer. He can't let that prayer float away up to God. There's no telling what that fucker'll do with it. He swallows it down, bitterly, and there it sticks, a lump in his throat.

The lump grows bigger and bigger, Louis choking on it all the way, until his throat is genuinely sore and he's sitting, flushed and freezing, in the lawn chair. Niall feels his forehead with the back of his hand and silently packs the camp up.

They leave twelve hours earlier than expected. 

Niall doesn't play any music at all on the drive home.

+++

Niall picks him up for the early service the next morning. "We don't even go to the same church," Louis says, dumbly, as Niall swerves left without turning his blinker on at the crossroads.

"We do today," Niall says, tersely. He looks anxious - guilty, almost, for having to be the bearer of bad news. "Knew you wouldn't go on your own steam. Knew you'd never forgive yourself for missing it today, of all days."

"I don't even _like_ church," says Louis. He picks at a hangnail on his left ring finger. It tears away more skin than he expected; he sticks it in his mouth to stop the blood.

"I know," Niall says, resignedly. 

This is _not_ a conversation they've had again and again. Louis doesn't even think they've properly had this conversation once. "You know?"

"I know," Niall repeats. He shoots a glance at Louis over the gearshift. "Bro. Come on."

"What?!"

"I was there, all right?" Niall says. "I was there in high school. It's not like it was a secret, what went down. And I've been your best friend for years. Like, come on. I see you during every break. It's like I can't get a second's peace from your ugly mug. It's either studying or you, Louis, or studying you, and I do see the expression on your face when anything to do with church, or religion, or God comes up, you know -" He snaps his fingers and points directly at Louis. "Yeah, that one! The one that looks like you've got the worst chronic wedgie in the history of humankind."

"'Chronic,' college boy?" Louis snaps. Niall's pegged him to a T, and the fact rankles and itches under his skin. At least Niall is being very - well, Niall about this proclamation. Liam would ask clarifying questions. He Who Occasionally Must Not Be Named, Depending On Louis's Mood would get squinty and suspicious and over-analytical, if he even cared at all. And He Who Must Not Be Named would start to plead, pause, and then just get quiet, and angry, and cross his arms and huff out a breath and walk out.

Louis knows _that_ from experience.

"Look, I didn't say you had to like it," Niall says, gently. "I'm honestly surprised you even still go. I get it, but I'm surprised."

"So, you think the Cats'll win big this year?" Louis asks, pointedly. It's a blatant change of subject, back to another familiar topic, and Niall's eyes grow tight in his face for a half-second before he sighs, raps his knuckles along the bottom of the steering wheel, and shakes his head quickly. 

"I mean, if Calipari would focus a little more on a strong, cohesive team with equal focus on offense and defense instead of promising the best high school seniors in the country that they can succeed and proceed, we'd win big every year," Niall says. "But yeah, we've got some real strong players coming in, so I'm hoping for the best."

"Pragmatic of you," Louis says. 

"Pragmatic," Niall says, shaking his head as he turns into the church parking lot and pulls into a space. He doesn't say 'you could be a college boy yourself with that vocabulary,' which is what he'd usually say, which means he's being gentle with Louis. Louis hates when people are gentle with him.

He still lets Niall guide him out of the car and to the doors. 

The sermon is on the nature of divine retribution. Louis, as usual, doesn't pay much attention. Pastor Parrish raises his voice on the typical red-letter words, but there doesn't seem to be any real new content to his message. 

Instead, Louis runs through the verses he can remember off the top of his head about divine retribution instead of taking in the way the preacher twists the words for the congregation, musing over Biblical battles and sins and comeuppances. 

He wonders, idly, if he could sin badly enough for God to smite him before July tenth, but then discards the thought. It's not like he avoids sinning on a good day, anymore. It's not like God has tried smiting him yet, so he certainly won't have _that_ to look forward to in the next few weeks. 

"You coming over for Sunday supper?" his mom asks, as they're filing back out the doors. Louis is carrying his baby brother so his stepdad can go ahead and pull the car around front. She gives a heavy glance at Niall, a knowing glance that's completely wrong. "Your friend can come too, if he wants."

"Thanks, mama, but no," Louis says, neglecting to point out that she's known Niall's name and Niall's family since the day she helped Maura give birth to him. "Not today." He rolls his shoulders back and stretches his neck to the side; it's stiff with the prayer he's keeping tight to his chest. 

"Something better to do?" she asks, but there's no warning in her voice so Louis doesn't mind laughing.

"Gotta hear about Liam's hot date with a girl in Pine Knot," he says. He shifts Ernie to one arm and tugs his mom into a half-hug with the other, getting her into a position so that he can drop a kiss on her cheek. "Next week, I promise. I'll even help clean up."

"See that you do, honey," she says. She tucks a sweaty hank of hair and readjusts Louis's littlest sister on her hip. "You coming to the barbeque on the Fourth?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," he says. He's not much of a cook, but he's made the beans for the cookout every year since he was twelve, and he's not about to stop now. "Lottie coming to the party after?"

"She's seventeen," his mom says, which isn't a _no_ so much as an _I wish she wouldn't but I won't be able to stop her_. "If she does, look out for her."

"More like the other way around," Niall snorts. Louis kicks him in the ankle, but he's careful to avoid Niall's bad knee. 

"You let me know if Dan needs help in the store again this week," Louis says, as his family's ancient van comes rolling up. "I'll make time." 

"You're a good boy," says his mom. She reaches out and takes Ernie onto her other hip. "You run along now."

Louis runs along now. 

"You ever get sick of hauling my ass around?" he asks Niall, as Niall starts his car up. 

"Every day," Niall says. He blows Louis a kiss, so Louis punches his arm. His throat isn't hurting quite as badly anymore.

+++

"Hey," Niall says, halfway into a heaping bite of mashed potatoes. "It'll be okay."

"We're not talking about this," Louis says, watching the condensation on his mug of strawberry lemonade gather and trickle down to the sticky varnish of the table. Liam hadn't made it out with them after all, so Niall had decided to spurn their usual Waffle House trip and get something with more potato options than just hash browns.

"Not talking about what?" Lottie asks, drawing up to the table, bleached hair in a high, slightly off-center ponytail. Distantly, Louis wonders when she started wearing so much mascara. She's not sunburned like Louis and Niall get, but she has fully tanned during her days at the state park pool.

"Nothing," Louis says. He scratches at the varnish. Some of it comes off under his nail, which is disgusting but which is also, refreshingly, something he's experienced at most Cracker Barrels that he's been to in his time.

"Friend coming to visit," Niall says. His mouth is full. He's disgusting. Louis doesn't know why they're friends.

"Friend coming to - _Oh_." Lottie's mouth forms a glossy pink O as she puts two and two together. "Is he really?"

"Don't get too excited about it," Louis grumbles. 

"Look I just came over to see if y'all need anything else," Lottie says, crossing her arms. Her nails are, like, the longest nails Louis has ever seen, and he had Ms Cole as a librarian back in school. They're also purple and glittery and very intimidating. There's a little rhinestone in the middle of her thumb.

Louis feels weird and fuzzy, like he's spent so much time trying to get his life to repeat in just the right way that leads to no surprises that he missed his baby sister growing up. And so now here she is, surprising him.

"I'm okay, thanks," he says, hollowly, even though he'd meant to ask for more butter for his corn.

"Maybe you can help me out, Lotts," Niall says. "Why don't anywhere in this here town sell hot browns? Isn't that supposed to be a Kentucky thing? I've wanted a hot brown all week, and yet."

"And yet," Lottie says, rolling her eyes. "You gotta go north if you want a hot brown, Niall, you know that."

"You should tell them to start making hot browns here," Niall says, definitively. "Special treat."

"Send a letter to Corporate," Lottie suggests. "They won't do anything special for just one store, but you could always try."

"Well, thank you for your help," Niall says, smiling. "This catfish is divine. My compliments to Corporate."

Lottie sucks her lips between her teeth, then releases them suddenly, like she's just remembered her lipgloss. "I have other customers," she says. There's a beat, and then she rests her hand on Louis's shoulder. "You tell me if you need anything, you hear? Anything at all."

"Thanks, sissy," Louis says. He scratches at the varnish again. It truly is a disgusting table. 

"Ugh," Lottie groans. "Don't _call_ me that, Louis." She whirls off, then turns right back around. "And don't pick at the table, you animal. I get that you're probably on edge right now, but at least play the peg game instead."

"Ah, just what I wanted," Louis drawls, as she walks back toward the kitchen. He pulls the peg game over anyway. "To be told I'm an ignoramus today."

"Hey," Niall says. He has another mouthful of mashed potatoes. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You know what happens when you do."

Louis tends to pray when he feels sorry for himself. Which is why he's tried not to feel sorry for himself for three years, to mixed results. He darts a glance up at Niall. "It's weird how well you know me," he says. "You know that, right?"

"It's my spy training," Niall agrees, faux-forlornly. "Alienates all the men."

"Perhaps not Justin Bieber, though."

Niall brightens up and eats more of his mashed potatoes. "Perhaps not."

+++

"It's too hot to move," Liam says. "Genuinely too hot to move. My fingers can't even stay fixed on the strings."

"Take off your shirt, then," Louis suggests. "I know about ten girls here alone who'd be thrilled if you did." He pauses, thinks about what he said, then hastens to add, "Not my sisters, though."

"I am a virtuous man, Louis Tomlinson," says Liam. "I will not walk around half-naked on the Fourth of July."

"Virtuous my ass," Niall says, cracking up. "Did you or did you not fuck that girl last weekend?"

"I did no such thing," Liam says, primly. He's literally puffing out his chest. Louis can't handle it.

"Did she not put out then, bro? Did you have to have a date with your left hand after you dropped her off?"

Liam deflates. "Don't be rude about her."

"So did she or didn't she?" Louis asks. He picks up Niall's old banjo and starts slow-picking out a plinky little tune.

"She didn't," Liam admits. "She's a third-date sort of girl."

"Ah," Louis says. He leans back in his chair and closes his eyes, then sits right back up again to light a cigarette. He leaves it in his mouth as he slouches back down, breathing out through his nose as he tries to remember the chords to the bluegrassy America the Beautiful they'd all picked out together in high school. Niall'd been on the banjo then, but Louis slowly starts to work it out again. He can feel sweat beading on his chest under his t-shirt, soaking into the frayed edges where he'd cut out the sleeves and lowered the neckline. The middle twins have the right idea of it; they're splashing around in the above-ground pool, mosquitos be damned.

"Hey, that's not bad," Niall says. He frowns for a moment, stretching his hands over the dulcimer's strings, and then launches into the song, playing counterpoint to Louis's easy pickings. 

"You're really going to make me move a muscle, ain't you," Liam says, sighing, as he lifts his guitar back into his lap and joins in as well.

"We really should do this in the parade next year," Niall says. "Or something. Drive up to London or Somerset and play in town."

"Yeah, sure," Liam says. "Ooooh, next year maybe there'll be more of us! You know, if Har - um. That one guy stays."

"There won't be more of us," Louis says. One way or another, there'll just be three. If He Who Must Not Be Named joins in, he'll bow out. 

He might consider staying for Zayn, but Zayn is never coming back. 

"Riiiight," Liam says. He pauses his playing and scrubs a hand across his head. It's buzzed short again for the summer, a tradition started when Liam joined ROTC in high school. Louis would never admit it, but he's glad Liam's fucked up kidney precluded him from joining up after he graduated.

"Anyway," Louis says, "Even if we did drive up to London or Somerset or even Corbin, we'd have to get back in time for hunting season."

"Hunting season!" Niall whoops, a little too loud for comfort. Some of the people gathered around the grill turn and stare. "It starts in several months! Gonna bag me an elk this year," he calls out.

No one is fooled, but at least Louis's mom and Bobby Horan turn back to the burgers.

"Watermelon," Louis says eventually, decisively, putting aside the banjo and stretching his arms back. 

"You getting some?" Niall asks, looking up from his dulcimer. "Bring me some vodka melon."

"Bring yourself some vodka melon," Louis says, but he meanders over to the trestle tables covered in food and fixes up a plate with both the boozey and the plain old watermelon slices. He grabs a salt shaker and as many cans of beer as he can hold in one arm on his way back.

"Look," Liam says, carefully, when Louis puts the food in between the three of them and passes him a beer. "It might not be that bad. You know, when Har - when July tenth rolls around."

"No, it will be that bad," Louis says, staring off into the middle distance. He pops his can open and takes a long, determined swig, and another, and another, without coming up for air.

"It might not!" Liam insists. "You can avoid him, you know. Not even see him."

Louis puts down the beer at that and levels a look at Liam. "In _this_ town? With _him_?"

"He's got a point, you know," Niall murmurs. He picks up one of the vodka melon slices and salts it thoroughly before taking a huge bite. "But one of us can be with you when you go out."

"That's unreasonable," Louis says. He's feeling desperation well up inside of him again, a frantic, clawy feeling in his chest that he _knows_ could turn into a prayer at any moment. He doesn't know if he has it in him to stop a prayer from flying out if he lets one form, so he shakes his head hard, for a long, long moment, to get the thoughts to fly out of his head.

It doesn't really work, but at least when the headache sets in, it's a bit of a distraction from the tightness in his chest and the swelling in his throat.

"We can _try_ ," Liam says, stoutly, and while Louis does appreciate the sentiment, he shakes his head again.

"We're not talking about this," he says. "We're getting drunk and eating beans and burgers and Karen's potato salad and when the kids drag out the fireworks, we're going hunting."

Liam and Niall exchange a look. Liam sighs a little, and they drop the subject. So they get drunk off the melon and the beer, and they eat the food, and they sit around on the porch playing whatever music that occurs to them until the sun sinks below the horizon and the kids drag out the bottle rockets and roman candles and sparklers. They watch for a few minutes and then slip away. 

Liam drives because Liam isn't supposed to get drunk, what with his kidneys and all, and he usually even pays attention to the doctors when they say that. They load the guns in the trunk of his ancient Camry and head to the traffic light downtown.

"Greens only, boys," Louis reminds them, and they nod. Niall takes aim first, and whoops when the light goes out on his first shot. They circle around to the side, and Liam takes his turn. There's a gust of wind, so he gets the green on his second try, and Niall and Louis both clap him on the back, congratulatory. 

"You can take the last two," Niall tells Louis, and Louis frowns. 

"But it's your turn to take the last shot this year."

"I won't offer again," Niall says, tersely, then claps Louis on the back with another whoop. "Go on! Get 'er done!"

So Louis gets 'er done. The first green light takes an embarrassing three shots to knock out, since his vision is wavering a bit around the edges and he's a little unsteady on his feet, but the last he clips on the first try. A fierce pride rushes through him, tugging at his heart and making him smile despite himself. He whoops too, louder than Niall has been all night, then shouts with delighted laughter at Niall's responding howl at the faintly-smoking traffic light as it switches from black to yellow. He feels brilliantly, totally alive right now, ecstatic and free and distracted enough he nearly forgets about the return of Stearns' prodigal son.

"Look at you!" Niall shouts. "God, I love this."

"I love you!" Louis agrees, pulling Niall into a big bear hug, then reaches out to snag Liam's arm and pull him in. "And you!"

"You're both so drunk," Liam says, rolling his eyes, but he's also smiling fondly. "C'mon, let's get out of here before we get caught."

The fireworks are done when Liam gets them back to Louis's mom's house. There's still the afterparty in the field out yonder, but Louis _is_ pretty drunk and the others are yawning, so he high fives Liam and Niall and goes inside his house, instead of back into his truck.

"You have fun with your mischief-making?" his mama asks, from the upholstered armchair in the living room. The footrest is all the way out. She has a can of beer in hand and the remote in her other.

"I did," Louis says. He goes into the kitchen and pulls out another couple of beers. He leaves one on the side table next to his mom and cracks one of the remaining two open. "Think I'll sleep here tonight."

"That's a good idea," she says. She clicks the channel over and turns the volume on, keeping it way down low. "I like it when all my babies are under one roof."

"Even though the walls are fit to bursting?"

"Even though," she agrees. They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the infomercials play, enjoying their beers, when she speaks up again. "Louis, baby, I heard something and I think you might need a heads up about it."

"Is it about - um. Is it about him coming back?"

"Oh, so you heard," she says, all in a rush, something like relief in his voice. "I ran into Anne at the store last night and she was all excited that her boy's coming back." She pauses, carefully, delicately. "Baby, you were in a real bad way when he left, before. Are you going to be all right?"

Louis downs the last of his beer in one go and fiddles with the tab at the top until it breaks off in his hand. He doesn't much feel like opening the last can, but he opens it anyway and takes a long drag before answering. "I'm going to have to be, aren't I?" he says, staring through the little hole and trying to catch sight of the dim light in the room glancing off the liquid inside. He presses his lips together and nods once, decisively. "I'm gonna go out for a smoke."

"I'll be here when you get back," his mom says. "Just in case."

Louis's heart clenches again, painfully so. "I love you, mama," he says, and goes over to kiss her forehead. 

"I love you too, honey," she says, and he pats his pockets to check for his cigarettes and then goes back out onto the porch.

He sits there for a long, long time, lit cigarette in hand, barely even smoking, reminding himself not to pray. Not that he could even really hear his thoughts well enough to do it, what with the crickets and cicadas and fireworks from down the way still going off, but. 

"I won't do it," he whispers up at God, finally, once the cigarette is nearly down the the filter. He takes one good, solid drag and drops it to the ground. "I won't ask you a damned thing."

+++

It's raining when he wakes up, a dismal drizzle that he faults for the pounding in his head over and above the beer he had the night before.

He hauls himself off his mama's couch and cracks his back. It's just past seven in the morning, but already the littlest twins are sitting on the floor in front of him watching Sesame Street. His mama is in the kitchen, brewing coffee. 

"Only cereal today, I'm afraid," she tells Louis, when she sees he's awake. 

"What kinds?"

"Cornflakes and Lucky Charms," she says, so he flaps a hand at her. 

"Both, please," he says. He drags himself up into a sitting position and calls Doris and Ernie onto the couch next to him. They clamber up on either side of him, too hot to press close comfortably but leaning in all the same. They smell sweet, like baby shampoo and soap, when he leans in to kiss each of them on the top of the head.

There's no way he smells anything but rancid. 

They don't seem to mind, though. Doris rests her little head on Louis's leg and breathes wet through the fabric of his shorts, and Ernie tugs Louis's hand until he can hold it in his, other thumb firmly in his mouth. 

His mom brings him the bowl of cereal and a spoon, and gives both Doris and Ernie milk in sippy cups. She sits down across from him again. "Work today?"

"Unfortunately," he says, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. 

"I'll fix you a Thermos of coffee," she says.

"Mama," Louis says, awkwardly trying to eat his cereal around both of his baby siblings, "You're the best."

Louis is running late by the time he extricates himself from his family.The rain, he realises when he leaves the protection of his mother's house's air conditioning, isn't doing a damned thing to cut the heat outside. It's an uncomfortably warm drizzle, soaking through his tank top and shorts as he runs to his truck. He doesn't really have time for a shower before work, or even a change of clothes; it's good that he keeps a spare work uniform crumpled under the passenger seat.

He speeds to Blue Heron, sucking down his mother's weak-ass coffee like it's - well. Not like it's a prayer, but like it is his saving grace. Which, to be fair, it might be. 

When Louis gets to the bridge, ten minutes away from the parking lot, he pulls over to the side of the road and scrambles out of his nasty Fourth clothes. He turns his boxers inside out and arches over the seats to pull on his work clothes, wincing all the while.

He makes it to work only five minutes late, and decides the rainwater can count as a shower. 

Niall's off today - the bastard managed to get off for his niece's birthday - so it's just Louis sitting, alone with his thoughts. He hates it. The rain doesn't let up all day, and neither does his headache. The upside - the downside - is that no one comes in at all; no one wants to wander the buildings in the driving rain when the walking paths just past the paved areas are a sea of mud. 

So Louis plays Solitare with the deck Deborah keeps under the desk for eight long hours, trying not to think at all about anything but the exhilaration of shooting out a traffic light and the companionship of picking at Niall's old banjo and his sweet, sweet baby siblings curled up, too hot at his sides. But his thoughts keep slipping to He Who Must Not Be Named, and all the shouting and vicious words they exchanged during He Who Must Not Be Named's final month of high school, after he revealed his plans for later, after he entreated Louis to join him but, in doing so, refused to show anything but a fundamental misunderstanding of everything about Louis. About that final soft, quiet fight, words taut with emotion, fists clenched and held tight to their sides, where they'd already said everything but had it out one last time. That fight was gentle, but terrible for it, each calmly-spoken word cutting deeper than twelve shouted ones. They'd never finished that fight before He Who Must Not Be Named left. That was terrible, too.

The fights would have been terrible enough if it weren't for everyone else around, but everyone else had been around. Had seen, and known, and judged, and prayed.

Louis had prayed, just once. Even though he didn't want to. Even though he didn't trust it. He needed to, just once.

That was the last time.

He finds himself twisting twine around his finger to distract himself, tighter and tighter, as his finger turns red, then purple. He watches his fingertip to see if it visibly throbs the way it feels inside. It doesn't - the depth of the pain doesn't show outside - so he unwraps the twine and moves to the next finger, rhythmically. It's almost like praying, the process of cutting off his circulation and letting it slowly come back, over and over and over again, but it _isn't_ praying, and that's the important thing. That's what matters. 

By the time he gets off, his throat is aching again. It's still raining, so instead of going straight back to his shitty little single-wide on the ten acres he saved for three and a half years to put a down payment on - the plot a couple miles out of town, the one he thought he wouldn't be buying alone, with the nice little space to build a cottage, given enough time and effort - he drives the opposite direction, to Yahoo Falls.

No one is there, either, the trail a mess of mud and long-dead leaves that the rain carried from higher up on the mountains. He climbs up underneath the falls, slipping a couple times in the muck but always managing to stay upright, until he's behind them.

And then he screams, a wordless, terrible shout, until his throat is dry and scratchy enough to justify the soreness. Until his voice starts to go out and his ears are ringing with the sound of his own voice, overlaid by the water crashing down around him. 

He doesn't feel better, but he does go home.

+++

"So here's what I think," Niall says. "I think you don't have to talk to him."

"I'll have to talk to him," Louis says, dully. He's drinking hot tea with lemon and honey on Niall's insistence, because his voice still hasn't fully come back yet and they're playing the train tonight. The incessant summer rain outside isn't helping one bit.

"Not if you don't want to," Niall insists. "I won't say he won't come along to see us at work, because you know he will, but that don't mean you have to talk to him."

Louis had almost forgotten, is the thing. How He Who Must Not Be Named loved Blue Heron more than most places in McCreary County. How even though he loved the moonbow at Cumberland Falls, and rafting down the river when the rapids were high, and riding the train, his favorite thing had always been pretending to be a miner's son who joined a union and got out, into a better life, ever since he was a little kid.

Honestly, Louis should have fucking known better. 

"If he talks to me I'll have to talk to him," Louis says, matter of fact. "You know how he gets."

"Just because he'll get upset don't mean you have to reply," Niall says. "I know I've stayed friends with him, but that don't mean you have to be nice to him. I understand."

"You know you talk more country when you get het up, college boy?" Louis asks. He turns the page in his magazine.

It's actually Fizzy's magazine. She left it in his truck when he went to drop her off at 4-H camp, where she's a counselor in training. It's a Teen Vogue, and the cover proclaims that Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are friends again.

Louis never had any idea that they weren't friends, but then, he gets most of his celebrity news from Niall, and Niall has a Justin Bieber-sized bias the size of Jupiter.

He's not reading about Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato being friends again now that they're both single. He's reading about the best new nail polishes and how to get a swimsuit that flatters your body type. According to the magazine, with his pear-shaped body, he should wear a bikini with a skirt to slim his hips, and a striped top to build up his chest.

"You think I should get a stripy bikini, Nialler?"

"I think you'd look drop-dead gorgeous in a stripy bikini, Louis," Niall says, fluttering his eyelashes. "Might need some padding in the top, though. I can't say you have much by way of tits."

"Niall, have you been checking out my breasts?" Louis asks, stroking a hand down his front to pull his shirt tight against his chest. He doesn't have any kind of pecs, really. It would be annoying if he cared.

"Every day," Niall says, rolling his eyes. "Why are you reading that, anyway?"

"I need to know _something_ to buy into the stereotype," Louis says, turning another page. "Did you know Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are friends again?"

"Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato are fucking again, more like," Niall says, laughing.

Louis pauses for a very long moment. "I'll allow it," he says, finally. This page is talking about the best makeup for your skin color. "But what if I _wanted_ to wear a plum lipstick?"

"It would look horrible on you, bro," Niall says. "Is your strategy to dress up like a girl so he doesn't recognize you?"

The thought hadn't actually occurred to him. "Hey, that's not a bad idea!" Louis says.

"No," says Niall. "It's a very bad idea." He pauses for a long moment, then says, "Unless you identify as a girl in which case I support and love you just the same."

"I don't," says Louis. "But it's nice to know that you're encountering so many new and open-minded people in college."

Niall looks like he's about to say something, but he sits back and closes his mouth for a moment instead. "Um, can I ask you a question, Louis?"

"If it's about He Who Must Not Be Named..."

"It isn't," Niall says. "Well. Not exactly, anyway. I just -- I left when he did, you know. We graduated in the same year and I left too. I went to UK. But you've never seemed mad at me."

"That was a totally different situation," Louis says, shortly. He pushes the magazine away and crosses his arms. "Completely different."

"No, I know," says Niall. "But like. I mean. Have you ever been jealous? Of me going? Because you mostly don't talk about Zayn - sorry, He Who Occasionally Must Not Be Named Depending On Your Mood, either, and he left too. And that was another different situation."

"You came back," Louis says. His voice is thick with emotion, which is annoying. He didn't want to let onto the fact that he's feeling all mixed up and twisty inside. "You didn't go for good. And I knew you were going to go. Your whole family's gone to UK. Bobby and Maura would have never let anything else happen."

"Zayn had a reason to never come back," Niall points out.

"And sometimes I talk about him," Louis reminds him.

They're quiet for a long minute.

"You know I love you, right?" Niall says, eventually. "You're my best friend, man."

"I know," says Louis, sighing. It feels good, so he takes another deep breath and lets it out, long and slow. Something inside of him unknots. "I know. Me, too."

+++

It's a brilliantly sunny day, still heavier than usual with the humidity of the latest rainstorm, when Louis runs into Ms Cox at the Walmart out 92.

To her credit, she looks just as awkward as Louis feels. Which is why he grits his teeth and gives her a friendly smile when she says "Oh - Louis, honey! I haven't seen you in a blue moon. How've you been?"

"Just fine, Ms Cox," he says. He's impressed with how easily it comes out, given that there's a soft, tinny ringing in his ears as she turns around to face him directly. They're in one of the freezer aisles - veggies and pizza - and Louis is in a scrap of another tank top cut, gaping, from an old t-shirt. He's cold, and he's reluctant, and his ears are ringing. He wants to be anywhere else but here.

"Mrs Twist now, honey. I got married last spring."

"Where?" Louis asks, sharply, even though it's rude. He's uncomfortable, and somehow, this is news to him. There's no way He Who Must Not Be Named would miss his own mother's wedding, and if he'd been in town once already...

"Oh, don't look at me like that, sweetheart," Mrs Twist says, gently. "Me and Robin went down to my family in Alabama. You know my mama's been too sick to travel for a few years now."

Louis deflates a little at that. He does know it, even though he'd rather he didn't. He doesn't want to know anything about that family anymore - not because they're bad people but because they're related to _him_. But talk is talk and Stearns is Stearns and the entire fucking county is small enough that if someone has sniffles in Whitley City, it'll get talked about at the church potluck. Bad news travels faster than everything in these parts, because everyone wants something worse to happen to someone that isn't them. "I'm sorry, ma'am. But congratulations."

"Well thank you, honey," she says. She looks him up and down for a long moment, then nods decisively. "I see you already know that Hazza's coming back home this summer."

"I do know that, ma'am," he says, tightly. The ringing in his ears is louder now, and his jaw aches as he clenches his teeth against the noise.

"Well, now," she says. "I'm thrilled as anything to have my boy back, but I told you once I'd love you like a son your whole life, and even though things have changed and I have not heard from you in years, I did mean that."

What is it about this family, Louis wonders, that they always manage to make him feel the lowest of low? "I'm sorry about that, Mrs Twist," he says.

"Call me Anne, honey, you know that," Mrs Twist says. She looks at him seriously, pushing her gigantic sunglasses up on top of her head as she does so. "I understand that things got hard for you."

Louis doesn't say anything at that, because his mama _did_ teach him some manners and he knows better than to snap at someone else's mom. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, though, and looks up at her as attentively as he can manage.

She purses her lips, then nods. "Anyway, Louis baby, I just wanted to say that I'm here if you need to talk."

"I appreciate that, ma'am, but I will not be talking about this with you."

She nods again, after a long, taut moment. "I understand," she says. "I do want you to know that I am aware that things got real complicated between you and my boy, and that I understand why more than you might think. So I wanted to make sure you knew he was coming back."

"I'm not going to come pay y'all a visit," Louis says. "Beg pardon."

Mrs Twist sighs and smiles at him, a soft, sad smile. "Honey, I know you're not," she says. "That's what I'm saying."

Louis nods, but he doesn't get it. The white noise in his head is at such a frequency that he can't parse out Mrs Twist's real meaning in what she's saying. The ringing sounds more like a swarm of bees, buzzing away in his skull now. 

He just wants it to stop. He just wants God to make it -

No.

No.

No, he doesn't want God to do a single damned thing about it. 

He takes a deep breath, and forces himself to unclench his jaw. "Well, Mrs Twist," he says, and then, as he sees her raise a finger and open her mouth, he corrects himself: "Anne. I do appreciate your words, ma'am. It's been good to see you again."

"Well," she says, sighing. "I don't want to keep you waiting. I'm sure you have a lot of shopping left to do."

"Thank you, ma'am," he says, and freezes as she pulls him into a hug. "You take care now."

"You too, Louis," she says, and walks away.

After she goes, he walks right out of Walmart.

Just leaves his cart in the middle of the aisle and goes.

+++

Louis gets off early that Friday, so he goes to pick the older twins up from Vacation Bible School. He comes up under the awning to get out of the drizzle, and he's about to peek through the activity's room window to see if they're done yet when someone pushes the door open from the inside.

"They're just finishing up," Eleanor fucking Calder says, slipping out and closing the door gently behind her. "Your sisters."

"Eleanor fucking Calder," Louis says, a slow grin forming, almost despite himself. "It has been a _hell_ of a blue moon. Whaddya say, El?"

"It has," she agrees, leaning back against the wall and folding her skinny arms across her chest. "Whaddya know?"

"Nothin' much," he says. He's grinning fully now. "Forgot you taught this thing now."

"Yeah," she says, tossing her head a little. Her hair floats down around her, in defiance of the oppressive humidity outside. "Me and Soph. She told me to take a breather before all the parents descend down. I really needed, like, fifteen minutes of quiet or whatever."

"Big of her," Louis says. He doesn't know Sophia that well; just knows that Liam dated her for a couple of years long-distance while she was at UK. Niall loves her, apparently. They used to go to the same parties before she graduated. 

"It is," Eleanor says, a smile curving on her lips. "So, Louis fucking Tomlinson. How've you been, you bastard?"

"Oh, you know," Louis says, flapping a hand. "I work all day in the coal mines to bring home the bacon and keep my kid sisters in shoe leather."

She laughs. "Still at Blue Heron, then?"

"Still at Blue Heron," he confirms. "And Barthell. And sometimes Dan's store. What about you, you still have those big plans to run off to the city and try to model?"

"Nah," she says. "I'm gonna go down to Nashville and start a hipster style blog. Rural chic meets urban flair, I'll call it. Or something."

"Good for you," Louis says, and they stand there, smiling at each other for maybe a moment too long.

"Oh, hey," she says, suddenly, snapping her fingers. "I heard that boy you left me for is coming back to town."

Just like that, Louis's smile melts away into nothing. "He has a name, you know."

"Yikes," Eleanor says, putting her hands up between them. "Word was you didn't like hearing the name so I didn't use it. Christ, Tommo, you can't think I'm actually still upset about that."

"No, I know, I know," Louis says. He sighs. They dated for the first two and half years of high school, him and Eleanor, and she was the one who broke up with him. She was the one who pushed him to accept that he was getting closer to He Who Must Not Be Named, and not just as a friend. "I know. I'm sorry. I just..." He shrugs and laughs a little - a fake, forced laugh. "I just really fucking don't want him to come back to town."

Ridiculously, impossibly, his eyes grow hot, like he's about to start crying, so he blinks against the sensation till it goes away.

"Oh, hon," Eleanor says. She pushes herself off the wall and pull him into a soft, sweet-smelling hug. "I know, Louis. I know."

"Ugh," he says, rolling his eyes at himself. "Sorry."

"Oh, you hush," says Eleanor, carding her fingers through the straggly ends of his hair, so he hushes. 

There's a lot Louis has hushed about, over the years with Eleanor, but this is the first time she's actually asked for it. When he first fell in with He Who Must Not Be Named, he hushed about their relationship, out of a misplaced sense of respect for Eleanor and what they used to have - until she set him straight, again, just plumb smacked him on the arm and told him, "If we're going to be friends, you're going to let me into your life."

When He Who Must Not Be Named fucked off for good, Louis hushed about just about everything, and he hushed to just about everyone, until she showed up with her cut-off booty shorts and college t-shirt and the wader boots that meant she had been off hunting cottonmouths in the shallows again. "Get over it," she had said, not unkindly. "He's gone but you can't let yourself go, Louis, are you kidding me?"

He's still hushed about the time that she drove down from college for the weekend with a bottle of fancy-fucking vodka from Lexington, the week after he put a down payment on his ten acres and dragged a single-wide smack dab to the center of it instead of building the cottage he's always kind of wanted with the man he'd always kind of loved. The time they got fucking wasted and passed out in the hammock stretched out back - he didn't even have a real bed yet - after a really dismal attempt at sex, where he started crying halfway through and couldn't stop until she rolled off of him and tugged him into her chest and stroked his hair and whispered "It's okay. You're okay. You'll get through this," for _ages_. It was the first and only time Louis has even tried since He Who Must Not Be Named left, and he's pretty sure Eleanor knows it, too. But he thinks she's okay with him being hushed about that particular time, because she hasn't ever brought it up again, either.

"I just," he says, and his voice breaks, because for some reason he can let himself be weak with Eleanor, even though he hasn't seen her in almost a year, in a way he can't with most other people. His eyes burn again, and when he scrubs at them with his fist, it comes away damp. He blinks the tears away. "El, I don't know what I'm going to do."

"You'll get through this," she says, thumb grazing over his shoulder. "You'll put your dang pants on one leg at a time and you won't jump any dry mudholes or kill any dead snakes or take any wooden nickels."

"Not even one?"

"Not even one," she says, firmly. "This too shall pass. Remember John 16:33?"

"Ask and you shall receive?"

"Someone needs to brush up on his Bible," Eleanor says, pulling back a little and looking him in the eye. "That's 24. 'These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.'"

"God's a fucking asshole," Louis says, fiercely, and at the shocked look on her face, quickly tacks on a, "Sorry. But."

"You have reason to be angry," she murmurs. "Of all people, you have so much reason to be angry. But have faith in Him. Take courage."

"You know," Louis says. "He didn't even believe? Not God - him. The guy I don't talk about. He Who Must Not Be Named. He just liked church, or whatever." It's not that simple, of course, but he doesn't feel up to hashing out the finer points. He's never felt up to hashing out the finer points.

"You've mentioned," says Eleanor. She looks up at him, eyes searching for - something. He doesn't know what. "Listen, the kids'll be coming out soon. If you need to talk more, later maybe -"

"I know where to find you," Louis confirms. He sniffs once, blinks again a few times, and tries a smile. "How do I look?"

"A little blotchy," she admits. "But it could just be the sun." Neither of them mentions that it's raining again today.

"Okay," he says, and nods once, firmly. "Okay. I can do this."

"You can do this," she says. "And if you ever need to escape, maybe the weekend he comes in, we can always go snake hunting."

Louis shudders. "I don't know what I ever saw in you," he says, and it's a credit to both of them, and how they've salvaged their relationship since he left her for a boy, that she laughs.

Eleanor gives him one last hug, so he kisses her - a peck on the lips, because the cheek feels too impersonal for Eleanor fucking Calder, but a peck that is clearly just a thank-you - and then she slips back into the activities room as another car pulls into the parking lot. She sends Louis's sisters out behind her.

"How're my favorite girls?" he asks, pulling both Daisy and Phoebe into a hug and ruffling both of their hair until they squirm away. 

As he double-checks their seatbelts in the truck and only just remembers to put on his own just for the sake of them watching, though, the knowledge sinks into him like a poorly skipped rock, skimming his awareness and then slamming into acknowledgement. 

It's not a rude awakening. It doesn't come as a surprise. It's just the calm, dawning recognition that he can't do this. He can't handle He Who Must Not Be Named coming back. 

Louis is not going to survive intact if he comes back, and despite _everything_ , even if he never once talks to the guy, Louis certainly won't survive if he leaves again.

Since, contrary to the beliefs of some, Louis _does_ have some sense of self-preservation, he just. He needs to do everything in his power to keep him away. Away from Stearns, away from McCreary County, away from the entire fucking south-eastern part of Kentucky. Away from his life.

+++

"I ain't gonna do it," Louis mutters, easing himself down on the rail bridge until he's sitting, straddling a rusted iron beam. He pulls his dry bologna sandwich out of the Kroger bag he stuffed his lunch into earlier. He doesn't even have _work_ today, but he'd woken up that morning and thought, _Maybe sitting at the river will help_.

He should be in church. Whispers will definitely be spreading about the return of Stearns' prodigal son now that the tenth is just around the corner. The gay boy - the one who didn't even outwardly appear to notice the whispers when the news got out, all those years ago - who made it out but is coming back again. The one who's seen the world and all the Lord's creation and lent a helping hand to those in need in the process. The fucking ass-shitter jerkhole that left when he shouldn't and now has the audacity to come back. The nonbeliever who plays lip service to the same social tenets that made him and Louis pariahs, however briefly. 

He should be in church. Showing up is the greatest form of protection he has, these days. It's not just knowing the content of the whispers of the community. People like him again, now, but people _also_ notice when someone doesn't attend. People particularly notice when someone like Louis misses church. People even more particularly notice it in a county that's tried to fight the ACLU to keep the commandments posted everywhere time and again for years, like McCreary has.

Louis needs to keep abreast of the gossip so that he knows what's coming. He needs to protect the image he's built up of himself, the one that he projects as a devout Christian. He needs to be in church. He's supposed to be in church. 

He's not in church.

Instead, he's sitting above the Cumberland listening to the rapids around the bend and the fucking loud crickets and cicadas chirp along the bank. Instead of a Bible and a somewhat air-conditioned pew, so far all he has is a splinter in the palm of his hand and sweat soaking through his shirt. 

But he did climb up the bridge at Blue Heron, sweat and splinters be damned, and he's feeling the sun bake his shoulders and cheekbones, and he has a mealy-ass apple and a dry bologna sandwich and too many thoughts in his head to handle. But as long as he has trivial things to bitch about, maybe he doesn't have to worry about thinking about - fuck.

He takes a big dry bite out of his sandwich to try and distract himself. The bread sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he curses himself for not getting more miracle whip at the store. Three pieces of bologna between two ends of loaves is a disgusting fucking sandwich to make, but it's what was left in his fridge after he abandoned his Walmart trip the other day.

The apple, as it turns out, has a worm in it. He spits his bite out over the edge of the bridge and glares up at the sun. "You hear me?" he shouts, voice fading out with the effort. "You fucking here me? I ain't gonna fucking do it. I am _not_ gonna do it, and you _cannot_ make me."

God, of course, doesn't answer. The sun just glares right back down at him and a fly buzzes lazily around his head and the crickets are just as loud as ever. Furious, Louis hurls his apple as far as he can and watches it splash into the river.

"I won't," he yells. "You piece of shit, I'm not going to ask you. You're going to make it happen without me fucking asking you."

What's in a prayer, though? Is it any kind of communion with the Lord, or just one that involves some form of request? Is it only a prayer if it involves a 'please?' Or does it follow a certain rubric, starting with 'Dear God' and ending with 'Amen?'

If it's the first, Louis is already screwed. 

His throat hurts more than ever with the effort of swallowing down the prayer - the one that's all those things and more - that has been bubbling up inside him since he heard He Who Must Not Be Named is coming back. Screaming around the knot in his throat has only made it worse, like the supplication to God that he's dying to make is literally infecting him. Desperately, he pokes at his neck, massages his lymph nodes, but they aren't swollen.

"You're a fucking coward," he says, quietly, because if he's angry he doesn't have space to be sad. "Talk to me, you bastard."

Maybe it's a bad idea to yell at God like this. God probably doesn't like being spoken to in this tone. But God hasn't shown that He very much cares what Louis has had to say or do ever, either, so it probably doesn't matter. 

To hedge his bets, Louis mutters a barely-recalcitrant "Sorry" before he climbs back down off the bridge.

+++

Fifteen minutes past midnight that night, as the new day rolls around and the tenth becomes "tomorrow" instead of "later," Louis gives up and gives in and breaks down for good.

"Please," he whispers into the still of the night. He can't even hear the crickets outside the thin walls of his single-wide. "I don't care what it takes. He can't come back. He can't, do you hear me? If you care about me at all, you'll keep him from coming back."

He vacillates on saying 'Amen.'

He falls asleep, hating himself for his weakness, before he can decide.

+++

In the morning, his throat feels raw, but it's no longer swollen with the sensation of swallowing down the biggest prayer he's repressed in three years. He washes away the scratchiness with Pepsi and dry cereal, and goes to work.

He's at Barthell today, taking a family on a tour of the community, pointing out the company store and explaining the way the scrips worked. The family clearly doesn't care about the rise of unionization in the mining industry and the bitter battles between company men and miners that resulted from the push for more reasonable fees, but he feels empty and limp and too tired to adjust the regulation spiel for the interest of the kids and the surly teenager and the beleaguered parents, so he describes it anyway, guiding them out from the incessant rain and into the clapboard building. It's by no means a heavy downpour - more of a pounding drizzle - but the rain is even louder on the corrugated roof, and he has to raise his voice to drown it out. 

Blessedly, the rain is finally cutting the temperature down, so even though the humidity is as high as ever, his shirt is wet exclusively from the weather and not from his sweat. _It's the small things_ , he tells himself, and tries not to think of the break in heat as a sign.

"Things got real expensive," he tells the family, pointing out how exorbitant the bolts of cloth and sacks of flour were. "That's why the miners wanted change."

The teenager rolls her eyes and stares out the door at the rain. Louis feels a sharp moment of affinity for her, then trundles on.

"We can move on to the schoolhouse next," he says. "Or the church."

"Can we go into the mine next?" the mom asks. She looks as exhausted as Louis feels. "That's what we're most excited for."

"Yeah, like is it like the mines in the Hunger Games?" the middle kid asks, excitedly. 

And just like a shot, Louis is five and a half years in the past, snowed into his house with the power on the fritz the night after a sleepover, perched on the arm of an easy chair, trying his damndest not to look like he wanted a cuddle, toes wedged under Ha - He Who Must Not Be Named's leg as he read out loud to Louis's sisters from the book since the tv was out.

Louis aches with the memory, the way his skin was buzzing with the need to touch and the soft, slow cadence of He Who Must Not Be Name's voice, the knowledge that something more than just a few romps with the other queer kid in town was swelling and growing between them. The dawning sense that this might be it, that he's almost done with high school and he knows where he wants his life to go. Who he wants to spend it with. The secret knowledge of the single college application - Berea is just seventy miles away; that's close enough to home to come back to. That's close enough for a relationship. 

He Who Must Not Be Named had changed the story, a little, telling Louis's sisters how District Twelve might be like Stearns, or Barthell, or Blue Heron. How District Twelve didn't have church, but they could still be kind. 

But Louis had been wrong about his future. Seventy miles was too far to travel, in the end, once his mama's marriage to Mark had fallen apart. The town wasn't ready for those queer kids to be together, either. And even though Louis was willing to overlook that, because it was _home_ , He Who Must Not Be Named hadn't been satisfied with a smaller life. 

But now he's coming back. He's coming back _tomorrow_ , unless God listens to Louis's prayer and steps in to stop him in his path. Lord, but Louis hopes God steps in.

He shudders with a sudden chill, and blinks, and he's back in the stale air of the company store with the family looking at him, expectantly. "It's a lot like it, yeah," he says, clearing his throat. There's a lump in there again, but it's not from a prayer. "Come with me and I'll tell you how."

+++

It's still dark out when Louis wakes up with a start. Something has changed - the air feels funny, somehow. Not tornado-funny - worse, somehow, maybe otherworldly. He feels funny inside, too, shaky and on-edge. There's a deafening roar outside, a sort of crash and a splash, and his ears ring with the sensation.

His phone is ringing, too, and he gropes for it. "The reservoir," Niall says, breathless. "Laurel Creek."

"What?" Louis asks, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

"Turn on the TV," Niall says. "I'm coming over. Bringing some shit. Thank God you're west of Stearns. Thank God mom's at Myrtle Beach." 

Louis turns on the TV. 

The news is frantic, breaking updates from all the local stations coming in fast and thick. It wasn't a dam or a lock so much as years of sediment blocking the southeast end of the reservoir. Decades upon decades of putting off building it up with concrete, because it seemed wedged there to stay and there was always somewhere more pressing to put McCreary County's overwhelmingly limited funds. 

With the low-grade flooding trickling over it and eating it away from the other side, it finally gave up the ghost and came crashing apart. It's dark out, but there's still news helicopters with floodlights cutting through the rain and the fog and picking out the rush of floodwater through the valleys south down toward Pine Knot, overwhelming the streams between mountains and seeping west toward Stearns. The houses along the valley, with water already crashing against their foundations and rising. 

Niall arrives at sunrise, by the estimate on Louis's phone, but the rainclouds are so heavy in the sky that you couldn't tell for looking. There's mud spattered up the siding of his jeep, and he unloads two giant trash bags full of stuff as he stomps his way to Louis's door. 

"Is your house -" Louis can't bring himself to say it. Niall's mom lives to the southeast of Stearns, at the end of the valley where the creek usually peters out. 

The news has revealed that the flood has pushed past the creek boundaries already, in a big way.

"It was okay when I left," Niall says, dropping the bags to the ground with a _flump_. "Better safe than sorry though, you know? Half of 27 is already washed out. Couldn't even start to get to my dad's."

"Christ," Louis whispers. No one can drive in if the highway's gone. Sudden, overwhelming guilt sweeps through him. His prayer - if He Who Must Not Be Named can't drive in, then he's being kept out. His stomach twists at the thought.

God is a huge fucking asshole, but Louis may just be an even bigger one.

"Yeah," Niall says, voice catching, and Louis suddenly notices he's shaking. 

"C'mere," he says, and pulls Niall into a hug. He's been sleeping in just his boxers, and Niall's soaking clothes chafe uncomfortably against his chest. "D'you want me to make up the sofa bed or do you want a cuddle?"

"Cuddle, please," Niall says, so Louis leads him back into his room and silently hands him some dry shorts to change into. Despite the storm, it's too hot to curl around each other in bed, even with Louis's window unit, but they do it anyway. Louis allows Niall to burrow his face into his shoulder and strokes his back as his stomach twists into tighter and tighter knots, until Niall's shivers calm and he's fallen fast asleep. Only then does Louis reach for his phone and call work.

"Hey," he whispers, once the call finally connects. "I'm calling in for both me and Niall."

Marcie is quiet for a moment on the other end of the line. "The whole place is shut down for flooding, hon," she says, finally. "Stay dry. We'll let y'all know when to come back."

Louis turns off his alarms and lets himself fall into an uneasy, dreamless sleep. 

When he wakes up again, the gloom outside the window has lifted somewhat, but it's still raining. The world feels off-kilter, somehow, in a way that has nothing to do with the flood footage flashing frenetically on his muted TV. 

The water is ten feet deep in some parts, leeching under the foundations of houses all the way down to Pine Knot, and as far west as Niall's neighborhood. But that's not why Louis feels like his skin is about to fly off his body. It can't be.

Niall is sitting up, sheets drawn up to his chin, looking at the screen more than he's watching the actual videos. "Hey," he says, when he notices that Louis is awake. "Work's cancelled."

Louis nods. He's identified the feeling crackling through the air and over his skin. _You fucking asshole_ , he thinks up at God. _You goddamn motherfucking asshole._ "He's back," he whispers. The words feel heavy in his mouth, like they're collecting in his jaw and weighing it down, like he's about to vomit with the pressure of them against his tongue. 

"No," Niall says, immediately. "With 27 washed half away? There's no way he could get in. How do you even know?"

"I know," Louis says. He can't describe the way the certainty is settling in his bones like a cancer, rotting him from the core. His eyes feel hot so he blinks, but they're dry. "I just know."

+++

They drive out together, the two of them. They take Niall's jeep because it can handle the water better than Louis's rusty old pickup, avoiding the puddles in the road as they weave along the valleys until, suddenly, the flood is in front of them.

It's gross as fuck, water muddy and full of trash and tree limbs. 

Louis has seen the Cumberland River flood before, overtaking its banks and swollen with detritus from the forests and towns upstream. The falls were wider and shorter than ever, tree trunks crashing over every couple of hours. But even then, the flooding went along expected routes. Hiking trails closest to the river were swamped, so they got closed off. 

Simple.

This is nothing like that. This is a road - the only road south - with a river cutting over it. This is a new lake following the curve of the valley below the former reservoir. This is islands made of houses, water lapping over the foundations and porch steps and rushing on forward, swelling deeper and higher and muddier. 

The water doesn't seem to be rising any higher, but it's still raining, and Louis is willing to bet his bottom dollar that the reservoir isn't done emptying into the surrounding hills. 

"Fuck," he says, squinting out over the mess. This is going to take forever to clear up. People will lose all their stuff. He pictures the mildew under carpets, the deep freezers in basements shorted out, venison slowly rotting as the murky water seeps inside. "McCreary can't afford this."

"No one here can afford this," Niall agrees, thumping his head onto the steering wheel. The water doesn't appear to have come up as far as his house - luckily, it was higher on a hill - but the yard looks awash even as they stay a safe distance away.

"Wonder if we'll get volunteers," Louis says. Everywhere he looks is far too brown for such a wet summer. He feels a little like crying, and it's not just the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach that Harry has forded these streams and made his way back into Stearns. "From the Red Cross, or whatever." 

No one gives a shit about Eastern Kentucky and no one has given a shit about it in forever, except for making jokes on the news (deserved or not), but it's always a possibility. They'd rather have a bit about how desperate the depths of Appalachia are, rife with booby-trapped woods to protect drug dens and users willing to shoot their parents for a fix, rural poverty porn extending back over a hundred years, but there's always a chance. To Louis's estimation, tragedy porn often outsells everything else.

"Probably," Niall says, backing his car up and turning around. Louis ignores the glint of wet in Niall's eyes as Niall blinks and drives back to Louis's single-wide. Mud squelches under his wheels even on the paved roads as he goes. "Maybe there'll be a beautiful volunteer you can corrupt."

Louis forces a snort. "Fat chance," he says.

He'd joke about how, if he was lucky, the water would keep pouring out until his whole house was flooded and he drowned in the middle of the night, but knowing God (that fucker), it would actually happen. 

He closes his eyes as they go past He Who Must Not Be Named's old house. He's heard tell that Anne and her new husband no longer live there, so there's no point in surprise at either an extra car in the driveway or the lack thereof. 

No use risking getting het up about it, either way.

+++

Niall, as it turns out, threw all his electronics and clothes into one bag. The other holds enough freeze-dried emergency food to keep them fed for a couple months of literally no access to the outside world.

"Niall, what the fuck," Louis says, staring at the giant cans of freeze-dried ground beef and shit. There's no way that Maura would buy this shit, so it has to be all Niall. Unless he picked it up from his dad's place on the way over.

"You can never be too prepared," Niall says, nonchalant as he carries the cans into the kitchenette and stacks them on the counters. 

"Can you even eat this shit?"

"Um, duh," Niall says, giving Louis an incredulous look that, regrettably, tells Louis that Niall sometimes just eats freeze-dried meat by the handful.

"Just checking!" Louis says. There's a buzzing under his skin, an uncomfortable, persistent thrum that he can tell won't be scratched by any physical means. "But you do know the apocalypse is just a scare tactic, right? God don't give enough of a shit to bother with that."

"I know my house is close to flooding," Niall says, quietly, raising his eyebrow at Louis.

"It's not my fault," Louis blurts, chagrined, before he can think better of it.

"Why on earth would it be your - wait." Niall sets down the last can of freeze-dried corn, crosses his arms, and lifts an eyebrow at Louis. "What did you pray about?"

"That he wouldn't come back," Louis admits, looking everywhere but at Niall. "Like. Sunday."

Niall frowns, sucking his lower lip between his teeth. "I didn't realize - " he says, and cuts himself off with a shake of his head. "I mean. Why didn't you tell me it was that bad?"

Louis debates arguing, but in the end, he just shrugs. "Didn't know it until it was," he says. "Anyway, it didn't work. He's back."

"I don't know why you keep saying that," Niall says. There's an edge to his voice that makes Louis frown. 

"I can tell," Louis says. 

"Okay," Niall says, and he's quiet for a long time. "Okay. Overlooking that, you didn't cause this flood. Okay?" When he speaks, it's slowly, quietly, like he's forcing himself to remain calm for a wounded animal. Louis bristles at it, then forces himself to take a deep breath and settle down.

"Fine," Louis says. He's not convinced.

"If you did, I would be very mad at you," Niall continues. "Because a lot of people have been completely flooded. I might end up under water, too. But the flood ain't your fault, Louis. I know you think He's the biggest canker sore ever to grace this universe, or whatever, but God wouldn't cast down a flood to stop Ha - someone from coming back to town. Okay? Especially if he came back anyway, like you keep insisting."

"He did," Louis says. The words are lead in his mouth and they're lead coming out, heavy and dark. "I can feel it."

"Well, if you feel that bad," Niall says, "You can help with the clean-up effort. But it's not your fault." His voice quavers on that, and Louis realizes, suddenly, that Niall is just inches away from breaking down. 

Louis kicks himself from not catching on before. "Hey," he says, clearing his throat to get rid of the lingering guilt. This flood isn't just about him. It's a little bit about him, but it's mostly about Niall. He has to focus on that. "Hey, Nialler, it'll be okay. C'mere, you'll be okay."

Niall sighs, slumping down against the wall until Louis goes over and pulls him into a big bear hug.

They stand like that for a long, long time.

+++

The funny thing about natural disasters, Louis learns, less than one day into the flood, is how much your phone rings off the hook.

He's no stranger to long phone calls from his nanna and the like, and the occasional one from Niall when he's away at school, and calls from his sisters whenever they want something, but they treble after the reservoir spills over. His mom, of course, just wants to check in every few hours. She keeps offering to let Louis come on down to the house and stay with all of them, but Louis doesn't want to leave Niall alone so he tells her to conserve her food every time. Liam wants to let Louis know he's trapped down in Pine Knot with that girl he's been seeing, but he's okay.

Old friends from high school who moved out of McCreary County text in to see if he's dry and safe. Niall's mom spends close to an hour on the phone with him when he's in Louis's room with the door shut; Louis pretends not to hear him sniffling through the single-wide's thin prefab walls. 

About halfway through the evening, a ringtone Louis never really expected to hear again starts playing. "Hey," he says, thumbing 'accept' on the call.

"Just saw the news," Zayn says, voice made tinny and patchy by the reception on Louis's phone. Louis hasn't heard that voice in nearly four years, outside of a drunk dial here and there. "You okay, bro?"

"I'm dry," Louis says, biting at a hangnail on his index finger. The skin tears and a drop of blood wells up, so he sticks it in his mouth. "So're my family. Niall's dry, but his mom's house might get flooded, so he's staying with me for now. Liam's in some love nest safe somewhere."

"Good, good," Zayn says, and there's a long, awkward silence. Eventually, he clears his throat. "I just wanted to -"

"However," Louis says. "That one guy came back."

"Harry?" Zayn says, voice loud over the connection, like the name alone doesn't rip through Louis's heart like so much shrapnel. "You seen him yet?"

"No," Louis says. His voice is tense, tone snappish, but he doesn't apologize. Even Zayn, for all that he left and never came back, knows that Louis never uses that name. "He Who Must Not Be Named hasn't made an appearance. But I know he's here. I can feel it."

"Louis…" Zayn says. His voice trails off a little, like he's not sure where to go with his thoughts.

"I can tell, Zayn," Louis says, with finality.

Zayn just coughs, once. "Okay," he says. "I believe you. Is he dry?"

He's the fucking flood, Louis doesn't say, because even though Zayn would appreciate the metaphor it's an inappropriate comparison to make now that they're in the midst of the disaster. "Who knows," he says instead.

Zayn makes a noise of understanding. "Anyway," he says. "Call me if you need to, okay bro? Just wanted to make sure you're all right."

"As much as can be expected," Louis says. " _Bro_."

"Look here," Zayn says, but he doesn't finish the thought. After a moment, he adds, "You said Niall was there? Can I talk to him?"

So Louis finds Niall and wordlessly hands him the phone. He crawls into bed, curling up around his favorite pillow, as Niall chats away to Zayn. 

He doesn't get comfortable, not after that call, but he does fall asleep.

+++

On day two of the flood, work officially shuts down. There's no way for most people to get to Blue Heron or Barthell easily with half of 27 still washed out - the train avoids the mess, but the company is concerned that rising waters could present a legal problem for them, should anyone get hurt. Louis tries not to think about his bank account and wince. He can handle a little setback; he's managed to put aside just enough emergency funds to get through this. Or at least he and Niall can live on fucking freeze-dried shepard's pie for however long it takes for the coal ghost towns to get started up again.

They watch TV, cuddled in Louis's bed as intermittent rain pounds against the roof, for a few hours earlier in the morning. Louis is still feeling a little weird about Zayn's call, and unready to face the day, but then the news starts cycling a banner about gathering relief efforts. "Guess we oughta go," Louis says, dragging the back of his hand across his eyes to wipe away the lingering sleep there.

"Yup," Niall says, pushing himself further upright and cracking his back.

They take Niall's jeep again, winding around the side roads toward the Baptist church north of the reservoir, right next to the Waffle House. The Waffle House is still open and at full functionality, which is a relief - maybe the damage isn't as as terribly extensive as the news made it out to be. There's a group of people huddled under a makeshift tarp tent, stacking up cans and MREs and piles of old towels on the card tables set up underneath. Louis casts a cursory glance around the area. He Who Must Not Be Named is, shockingly, not there, though it's bound to be just a matter of time. Still, Louis breathes a sigh of relief.

"How can we help?" Niall asks, pushing his way into the knot of women.

"Oh, honey," Mrs MacIntosh, the butcher from the Kroger, says, thumping down a flat of bottled water. She comes out from around the table and pulls Niall into a hug. "How's your mama's house doing?"

"It's real close to the water, ma'am, so I'm staying at Louis's place just in case," Niall says. He's carefully polite, the way he only gets when he doesn't want to let on that he's scared. "Thank you for asking."

"You boys are so kind to help out," she says. "We've already gotten some people come in from out of town to pitch in, can you believe? Red Cross is coming in today, too. Y'all can help Taylor over there unload her truck for now." She pauses, surveys the tables, and then says, "Actually, Niall, do you know all your mama's neighbors?"

"I know most of them, ma'am," Niall says. "Do you need a list?"

Mrs MacIntosh looks thoroughly grateful. "Yes, honey," she says. "So we can deliver emergency supplies to people stuck in the water."

"I'll catch up with you," Niall tells Louis, before focusing in entirely on Mrs MacIntosh. So Louis sticks his hands in his pockets and meanders toward the pickup truck across the parking lot. It looks a hell of a lot like his, except with a little less rust around the edges. Someone's got taste.

There's a blonde girl with short denim shorts and no ass to speak of leaning over the bed of the truck, the tips of her hair blending in with her yellow t-shirt. She's rummaging around through a couple of sacks of what seems to be cans.

"Need help?" Louis asks, and the girl whirls. 

"Hi!" she says. Her voice is a little raspy, intriguingly so. "Sorry. Yes, please, that would be great."

"What can I do you for?" Louis asks, walking up beside her and peering over. There entire truck bed is full of supplies - food, water, and mops. "Where on earth did you get all this?"

She laughs. "Brought it in from Nashville," she says, climbing up the back of the truck and swinging her leg over the gate. She clambers completely into the bed and starts rummaging around in earnest. "My church loaded me up when we heard the news. Figured y'all could use it. Sorry, by the way - gate's busted; we'll have to go over it."

"How did you get here from Nashville? Since the road south is flooded and all." Louis steps up on the back fender, holding onto the side of the bed.

"Drove around it," she says. "I came from above."

North, then. Louis nods. "I'm Louis," he says, extending a hand over the back of the truck. "Tomlinson. I'm from around here."

She grins, a slow smile that takes up her entire face. There's a smudge of her deep red lipstick on her teeth; apart from that, she's impeccably dressed. Her sneakers are impossibly white. "Taylor Swift," she says. "Pleased to meet you, Louis Tomlinson. Can you help me get these here cans over to that there table? I'll lift them over to you."

When she takes his hand to shake it, Louis's insides buzz - not with anticipation or appreciation, though. Rather, his nerves jangle, suddenly, with alarm, worse than he's felt in weeks. He almost falls off the back of the truck. 

"Absolutely," he says, dazed, and steps down before he can fall down. He fills his arms with the cans she passess him and, distracted, lugs them over to Niall and Mrs MacIntosh. 

His sense of foreboding grows apace with her bright smile.

+++

"Yknow what," Louis says to Niall, dumping the flats of bottled water that Niall passes him into the little rowboat Perrie Edwards scrounged up from somewhere, "Maybe I was wrong."

He wasn't wrong. He knows he wasn't wrong. There is absolutely no fucking way in which he was wrong - the twisting in his gut and the crawling under his skin tells him as much. But meeting Taylor, whose presence is still burrowing its way inside Louis like splinters under his fucking nails, has confounded that certainty. 

"Say what?" Niall asks. He's distracted, looking off into the distance over the murky, rising water as he pulls another flat of water out of his keep. "Wrong about what?"

"You know," Louis says. He takes the flat from Niall and loads it into the boat. It sinks a little lower into the water - it's possible they need to wait for the next trip to carry anything else. "Him. Being back. Maybe he's not here." But his stomach clenches unsteadily as he says it, enough that he has to clench the side of the boat to keep from doubling over. 

"About that." Niall is making a weird, pointed face at Louis. 

"What?" Louis demands. He can't begin to interpret Niall's frantic, significant Looks.

Niall rolls his eyes and jabs Louis in the arm. "Heads up," he hisses, looking over Louis's shoulder. "Don't look now - incoming."

Louis twists his head anyway. His stomach falls, faster than it's ever done on the roller coasters the few times Louis has made his way to Dollywood or Six Flags. He drops the flat of water he's holding plumb into the mud at his feet. He hardly even registers it splattering up onto his bare legs. Distantly - so very distantly - he registers Niall leaning over to pick it up and put it back in the Jeep.

He Who Must Not Be Named - _Harry again_ , Louis supposes, now that he's back within his direct line of vision - Harry's grown out his hair. It's long, now; longer than he'd ever imagine Harry would dare grow it. He's finally gotten some stubble around his face - sparse, but there. His eyes are still the most striking fucking things Louis has seen in his life, which is… annoying, at best.

As he walks over to them, he pulls his hair up into a bun and secures it with a band from around his wrist. Louis can't look away from the stretch of the sinews in his arm and the line of his jaw against the wet and hot grey sky. The way there's ink on his arms, dark and permanent now, etched designs Louis can't quite make out.

Something nudges up against his arm. When he looks down, it's Niall's hand. "I've got you, bro," Niall whispers, so Louis gratefully takes his hand and squeezes it. Niall's palm is gritty from the mud, and warm, and clammy. 

Louis wouldn't have it any other way.

When Harry draws up to them, his gaze falls to their hands, and he doesn't look away for a long, anguishingly silent minute. He just stares, and latches his own hands together in front of him, and stares some more.

And then he clears his throat.

"So… you two… you're…" Harry fumbles over his words, fingers twisting together anxiously. His voice is rough, deeper than Louis remembers. It still sends a fucking shiver up Louis's spine. His accent has faded a little, though. It's weird. Louis doesn't like it.

"Harold," Louis says, voice clipped. He's furious. He's devastated. Three years, and _this_ is the first thing Harry says to him? Even if he and Harry had never - but they had. He can't talk to Harry at all anymore - doesn't _want_ to talk to Harry at all anymore, and the hurt will shine right on through no matter how he does it. But snapping - snapping feels safer. It feels better. He tries to add a lilt to his voice, though; that's less telling. "Can't two gay men be bosom friends without it being something more?"

"Hey, I'm bisexual," Niall says, frowning. "I can be friends with _anyone_ without fucking them, too."

"Well, I'm bi too," Louis says. He feels softer when he looks at Niall, less likely to explode, or revert, or whatever. His hands don't feel too big for his body when he's focusing on Niall. Niall is staunchly on Louis's side here, even if he does talk to Harry sometimes on the phone, and that means the world.

But Harry's like a fucking planet - Louis is in his gravitational orbit and can't pull free. So he resigns himself to anguish, and faces Harry head on. 

"Let me rephrase. Can't two bisexual men be bosom friends without it being something more? Anyway, Niall's saving himself for Justin Bieber."

"One day he'll love me," Niall agrees, solemnly. 

"I know he will, Nialler," Louis says, clapping Niall on the shoulder with his free hand. He squeezes Niall's hand with his other. "Anyway, even if we were -"

"Which we're not," Niall interjects.

"Which we're not," Louis agrees. "Even if we were, it wouldn't be your business." _You made it not your business_ , he doesn't add. He doesn't want to let on just how much he's still hurting. Three years is far too fucking long for it to still be hurting.

"Right," Harry says. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, shrugs his shoulders up and tilts his head back and to the left, indicating at something. "Uh, anyway, that girl sent me over to see if you guys need help." Fucker didn't even say 'y'all.' This is what happens when people leave.

When Louis looks over, Taylor is beaming at him. She wiggles her fingers in a little wave. 

"We don't," Louis says, shortly. He doesn't bother saying 'thanks.'

Niall slings an arm over Louis's shoulders, rubs the last of the mud off his hand and onto Louis's upper arm deliberately as he does so. "Sorry, Haz. Try somewhere else?"

"Right," Harry says again. "See you, I guess." 

He turns and trudges away. The fight seeps out of Louis, and he lowers himself carefully onto the ground and leans against the side of Perrie's rowboat, mud be damned. 

Okay, so maybe it's more of a dignified collapse. So what.

When he glances up again, Niall is looking at him, worried. "I'm okay, Nialler," Louis says. They both know it's a lie. 

"We can go home," Niall says. "If you want."

Louis wants desperately to say yes. "No," he says, sighing. His throat closes up around the word, but he pushes on through it. "Gotta help these people."

"That's my boy," Niall says. He leans down and offers a hand to help Louis up. 

He pulls Louis straight into a hug. Even though Harry is still not very far away, even though Harry can clearly see that Louis needs the comfort, Louis doesn't resist.

+++

"So are you just, like, not going to talk to me?"

Louis stares straight ahead, lit cigarette dangling from his mouth as he slips manual can openers and propane bottles into bags for people who refuse to leave their land for the sanctuary of the high school gymnasium, even up to their attics in water. The church doors are wide open and the air is humid from the rain, despite the fans pulling double-duty. It's almost nicer outside, under the tarp, than inside. "Nothin' to say."

Harry sighs. Louis refuses to look at him, refuses to catalogue all the ways in which Harry is no longer the bright-eyed kid with short curly hair he remembers from before. The one with skin that showed every fucking mark Louis left with his mouth, and the ballpoint and sharpie tattoos he'd scrawl on his arms to see what it'd look like once he turned eighteen. "So that's how it's going to be?"

"That's how it's gonna be," Louis agrees, He takes a drag off his cigarette and breathes out through his nose. Some of these bags need first aid kits, probably. There's probably injuries out there. If only it would stop fucking raining. These bags are going to disintegrate before they even get to the boat.

If Harry hadn't come back, would any of this have happened?

Harry sighs again, pointedly. Louis remembered the fighting but forgot how passive aggressive Harry can be. "I just thought -"

"You made this bed," Louis says, turning to face Harry. He still doesn't look at him, though, just stares over his shoulder at the raindrops splashing in the puddles outside. "Fucking lie in it. Here, if you want to be here, you finish these bags."

He spits his cigarette out onto the ground and stalks off toward where Taylor is frowning at water filter parts back inside the church, trying to figure out how to fit them together and package them up. She might make him feel unnatural when he touches her, but that's still a far sight better than Harry fucking Styles. 

She looks up at him through her eyelashes when he sits down across from her.

"Trouble over there?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

"You could say that," Louis agrees. He can feel Harry's eyes on his back, but he tries to ignore it. He reaches for a filter and tries to slide it into place in its little mechanism. It seems someone has piled up two different sizes of parts on the table. 

Taylor hums, understandingly. "You two always been enemies or was he a friend who did you wrong?"

Louis laughs despite himself, bitterly. "Something like that," he says. He frowns at the parts until he identifies one that just might fit the filter, so he picks it up and tries it on as he debates about how much to tell her. "How long do you think you're gonna be in town?"

"As long as I need to be," Taylor says. 

Something in her voice - it's weird. Louis frowns at her for a second before he realizes that he is also being weird. Weirdness doesn't have to beget weirdness. That's not in the Bible - Louis would know - but it should be. "Right," he says, and comes to a decision. No use in keeping any secrets from anyone who passes through this Godforsaken town. Rumors spread more than quickly enough, and it's better that she hear it direct from him rather than from one of the gossipy ladies organizing food in the back. "Then you'll hear it from someone. Might as well be me. That asshole back there is my ex."

"Ex... boyfriend?" Taylor asks. Her expression is unreadable.

"If you're going to judge," Louis says, finding another two filter parts that are the same size and fitting them together, "I can take it. I managed three years ago with everyone I know, I can manage with a relative stranger."

"No, no," Taylor says. She licks her red, red lips and tucks her hair behind her ear, then reaches over to rest her hand, reassuringly, on his. He doesn't feel reassured, though. His nerves are suddenly on the defensive again, goosebumps rising all up and down his arms at her touch. "Thanks for trusting me with that, Louis." The thank you strikes Louis as strange, but he can't place why, exactly. Is it overly familiar, maybe? Or is it just that his body seems to go haywire whenever Taylor gets close? "Bad break up?"

He's probably just making things up. She's probably just a sweet girl who wants to help out. Maybe she's someone else's Harry. Maybe that's what's bothering him. "Haven't seen him since," Louis says, bluntly. "Three years."

Taylor nods, understandingly. "Did he come back because of the flood, then?" she asks, fitting together another filter. They're putting together quite the row of water filters here. Louis hope they're put to good use. He's willing to bet a full month's salary that Old Man Grimshaw, who's been refusing to leave his house, will use his to distill moonshine here before too long.

"Other way around, more like," Louis mutters. When Taylor gives him a quizzical look, he shakes his head. "He was already coming back here. The flood's just a coincidence."

"A coincidence," Taylor echos, nodding. Her hair bobs with the motion. "Right."

"Right," Louis says. He can't help it; he gives her another weird look. There's something off about Taylor Swift. It's not just the physical discomfort telling him as much, but that certainly doesn't help. 

Or maybe his radar for weird is just off, with the weather and with Harry coming back and everything. Maybe he just needs some air. But Harry is outside, with all the air, so that's right out. 

Maybe he should just go up to the reservoir and yell at God until He sucks all the water right back inside. 

"Do you believe in the power of prayer?" he asks Taylor, pushing his fifth filter aside. He's kind of done with filters. It's not enough to be a two-person job. He'd probably be better off inventorying cleaning and drying supplies, or trying to convince people that moving to the gym is a viable option for now.

"Of course I do, Louis," she says. "I am a Christian. I go to church. Prayer can accomplish astonishing things."

"I think maybe prayer can't stop anything from happening," Louis says, sullenly. He wants the rain to stop. He wants to have a smoke. He wants to go pick his sisters up from their various camps and take them all out for ice cream and not worry that Harry might come along. "Not a single damned thing."

"That's an interesting perspective," Taylor says. She has that tone to her voice again, the one Louis can't place. It's probably not condescension. Maybe it's self-importance? She certainly sounds kind of like she's trying to be a teacher. "Would you say that prayer can only generate, rather than stagnate?"

"I don't know," Louis says. "I hadn't thought that far ahead." He fits one more filter together and then pushes back from the table. "You should meet my ex-girlfriend. I think maybe you two would get along."

A funny, thoughtful little look crosses Taylor's face. "Maybe I will," she says, and grins. Her teeth look weirdly sharp in the half-light of the church. "You'll have to introduce us."

"Sure," Louis says. "I'm uh. Gonna go down to the water. See if they need me there."

"Bye, then," she says. 

Louis tries not to notice Harry crossing over to Taylor's table as soon as he leaves. He tries not to stare at him, sitting down and leaning in earnestly, hair swinging forward and brushing his shoulders as he does so. Harry and Taylor have hair that is exactly the same length; Louis tries not to notice that, either.

He fails on all counts.

+++

All disasters, Louis decides, are the same. They keep happening over and over again, like in slow motion chain-reaction explosion shots in the movies he's loved since he was a kid. Or like the old saying, a trainwreck, running inexorably off the tracks, rolling over and over and coming to a crashing halt, and when the whine of metal scraping against metal subsides, the screams rise up.

Louis's scream might be shitty introspective metaphors; those have certainly been rising with the water and the temperature outside and the knowledge that Harry will be in his line of vision whenever he fucking turns around. 

It's a small blessing, perhaps, that Harry hasn't really tried talking to him again. But Louis is a little bit convinced that he's following him, because he's _always_ fucking _there_.

What a giant cosmic joke. It took Louis years to get used to Harry being gone, and now he refuses to go. He just watches Louis and Niall move around each other, fitting pumps and filters onto the little boats the Red Cross has set up around the flooded areas, or Louis and Taylor stack more cans of food into boxes for the people who refuse to leave their land on pain of death, or Louis and his mom rolling up bandages inside plastic sheeting for anyone that's been hurt in the flooding.

The flood keeps dying down, only to surge back up again with the intermittent rainstorms. Harry keeps existing in the corner of Louis's eye, an astigmatism that refuses to go away. 

The disaster, Louis suspects, may not be in Harry's presence, but in Louis's traitorous heart. He wants so desperately to yell at Harry, to explain _why_ he has nothing to say to Harry in as loud and as vulgar away as he can manage. To say that he's only kissed one person since Harry left - Eleanor - and he couldn't even begin to see it through. That he's wrapped himself in anger and hurt so tightly for so long that the occasional memory - of him and Harry skipping rocks across the Cumberland at Blue Heron and laughing at the splashes, of him and Harry sneaking away in the woods behind the school to kiss against the trees, of him and Harry driving around and picking out the plot of land they'd like to build a house on someday - feels like the deepest betrayal of his own psyche. 

That he can't afford to talk to Harry, because Harry doesn't deserve to be someone that Louis misses.

"I can't talk to Niall about it," he tells Liam on the phone. Liam is still stuck in Pine Knot with his mystery girl, on the other side of the washed-out highway. "Because I know him and Harry are still kinda friends, and I don't want to make him feel uncomfortable."

"You know Niall's your friend first," Liam says, slowly.

"Yeah," Louis says. He's happy about the fact, but he doesn't want to be. "I know. But still."

"You could ask if he wants to hear it," Liam says. "He might get upset if you keep him out of your loop. You certainly never kept anything from him before Harry came back." There's a wistful note in his voice. 

"God, and you haven't even gotten to see him," Louis says, even though he _knows_ Liam is also his friend first, now. Niall may be Louis's best best friend, but Liam endures. Liam, like Louis, is the one of the only ones who've never left. Liam's always going off on little love-adventures, but he sticks to McCreary County. His reasons may be different than Louis's, but fundamentally they share that connection, and when Niall's off at school, it's just the two of them ranging over their old stomping grounds. Louis might share more secrets with Niall when Niall is around, but Liam has gotten his fair share of them, too. 

But Liam doesn't resent people who leave like Louis does. He doesn't have the same reasons to be mad at Harry. In between shutting down any threads of conversation about the guy at all over the past three years, Louis has gotten the impression that Liam might miss him a bit.

"My time will come," Liam says. "Sounds like you're seeing him enough for the both of us right now."

"I am," Louis says, sighing. "Thank God _someone_ gets it."

"Maybe it's a sign," Liam adds, and wait. What?

"What on earth are you implying, Payno?"

"Just that, you know," Liam says, and he clears his throat. Louis wants to think it's a self-conscious throat clearing. "If he keeps hovering, maybe you should try to talk to him. Face your fears and they'll go away, and all that."

"Liam, that is the worst fucking idea you've had in years," Louis says, sharply.

Liam doesn't seem to take offense. "Listen," he says. "To make a disaster stop happening you have to address the problems it causes. We're all working real hard on helping the flood victims right now, right? From opposite sides of the water. So treat your heart like a flood victim. Address the problem. Talk to Harry."

"Dunno why I called you," Louis says, frowning. He twists his finger into a loose thread on his shorts, winding it around and around until the tip turns bright red and hot. 

"You love me, really," Liam says. "I give great advice. Talk to Niall, and then talk to Harry." He's quiet for a moment, and then adds, cautiously, "Look, Lou, I know you've had trouble moving on in the past. I know. It's been real hard for you, him leaving and him coming back and stuff. But maybe if you clear the air you'll be able to start moving past it all. Be a little less lonely."

Louis doesn't have a sharp retort to that. Liam is always around, even when he's dating a new girl in the county. He includes Louis in his dates, even, when he can, convincing whatever girl he's with to bring a friend along for his buddy. It never goes anywhere - no one has piqued Louis's interest since Harry left - but it's very thoughtful, because Liam knows. Knows that Louis prefers sleeping with someone else in his bed because he's been that someone more often than not when he's between girlfriends. Knows Louis hates the land he lives on, a little, secretly, because it was meant to be land that he lived on with Harry, in a house they built together. Knows Louis will never give up on that land, or on McCreary County as long as he lives, but that he's also lonelier for it. "Hmm," he says, finally, noncommittally. 

"You just think about it, at least, okay?" Liam says, finally. "I do know what I'm talking about."

Louis is quiet for a long time after they hang up, thoughts and heart both racing. He can't, he ultimately decides. He can't even begin to broach the topic with Harry. He refuses. 

He won't be derailed any further.

+++

"Hey," Taylor says, Saturday night, as they're distributing food to cots in the high school gym. "What church do you go to?"

"The one over in the holler past the hunting store," Louis says. "You looking for a service tomorrow?"

Taylor nods. Her lower lip is very full, and her mouth curves naturally into a smirk every time she smiles. It's mesmerizing, kind of. "I am," she says. "Mind if I come along?"

"Not at all," Louis says. He catches sight of Harry watching them out of the corner of his eye, so he squares his shoulders and looks her up and down. "Do you want me and Nialler to pick you up?"

Taylor's smile widens, her brilliant white teeth showing as she does. "That sounds lovely, Louis, thank you kindly."

"It's no problem," Louis says. He's pitching his voice louder, so that Harry can just about hear it, and he can't stop himself. It is what it is. "You're staying in the motor lodge, right?"

"That's correct," says Taylor. "What time should I expect you two?"

"Nine?" Louis asks. "The service does start at ten, but if you want a good seat you have to get there early. Especially with everyone and his grandma praying about this flood here."

"Sounds great," Taylor says, and extends her hand. 

Louis expects the weird, static shock that travels down his spine when he takes her hand to shake it. It's become familiar by this point. "Till tomorrow, then, Miss Swift."

"Till tomorrow," Taylor says. She's still smiling as she watches him leave the gym. 

To his credit, he doesn't look sideways at Harry as he goes past..

+++

"Is this to make Harry jealous?" Niall asks, as they pull up to the motel.

"Harry won't be at my church," Louis says, with conviction. " _Our_ church. For now. Because you're the bestest supportive best friend I could ask for." 

"Damn straight," Niall says. Neither of them mention that Louis wouldn't have begged Niall to go to his church with him if he wasn't worried. 

Louis texts Taylor _outside!_ and puts his phone away. Harry's mom and stepdad have been going to a different place for years now, and Harry's had a very different relationship with God and religion than Louis has. So. "I'm just being a good Samaritan."

"Do you _like_ her?" Niall asks. Louis tries not to take offense at the shock in his voice.

"No, but I'm allowed to like people if I want to!"

"I know that," Niall says, hopping out of his seat as Taylor walks up to the truck so that she can slide in between them on the truck's bench seat. "But do you know that?"

Louis ignores him. "Hey, Taylor," he says instead, nodding at her as she buckles herself in, fingers pressing close to his legs as she does. He ignores the now-familiar sensation that envelopes his entire body when her skin brushes against him and focuses on Taylor, instead. She's wearing a cute little dress - white, with tiny sprays of blue flowers on it - and her hair is brushed and down. It's a nice look, if a bit of a departure from the jeans shorts and tank tops and ponytails so ubiquitous to when they're working with flood relief."You look real nice."

"Why, thank you, Louis," Taylor says, smiling at him. Her lips are, as always, blood-red. "You don't clean up too badly, either."

Niall makes a face at Louis over Taylor's shoulder, which Louis staunchly ignores as he pulls the truck out of the motel parking lot and speeds along the road to the church. 

"You go to church every Sunday?" Taylor asks, as they draw nearer.

"I do," Louis says. He carefully leaves out any mention of his underlying resentment toward it and God. "Well. Last week I communed with God on my own time at the river. But I mostly do."

"So you spend your Sundays in service to the Lord, at church or otherwise."

"You could say that," Niall pipes up, laughing through his words.

"Do you?" Louis asks, before Taylor can question Niall's words. Taylor is a little intense. He'd already gotten that impression from working together on flood relief for a few days, but this is on an entirely different level,

"I do try to live my life in service to the Lord," Taylor says, simply. "And when that involves going to church, I go to church."

Louis doesn't have the faintest idea what she means by that. Maybe she also has a complicated relationship with God. "What church do you go to?"

"Oh, just this place in Nashville," Taylor says, flapping her hand. "You probably wouldn't recognize the name."

"Well," Louis says, swerving into a parking lot without flipping on his turn signal. "I go here."

That effectively ends the conversation, and Niall goes to show Taylor to his and Louis's usual pew while Louis goes off to hug his mom and all his sisters who are still in town and double check that they're all okay. They don't live near the flooding zone, but still. 

It's when he's heading inside to the seat Niall's undoubtedly saved for him that he sees the back of Harry's head, two pews closer to the altar and to the right of Niall and Taylor's sleek blonde heads. "I _cannot believe_ ," he hisses at Niall as he sits down. 

"What?" Niall asks, so Louis nods in Harry's direction. "Ohhh. What on earth is he doing here?"

"Does he usually go to a different church?"

Louis is stuck staring silently at Harry's head, so Niall pipes up. "You could say that," he says, slowly, not laughing this time.

Taylor hums, a curious, high-pitched murmur, but Louis ignores it. He stares at the back of Harry's head, registering nothing but the lank fall of his long hair, the curls twisting below the neck of his shirt, the way he seems to be looking so attentively at the altar, head nodding as Pastor Parrish steps up to the pulpit and starts to preach. He watches, ignoring the looks he vaguely registers Taylor giving him and the answering looks Niall intercepts and sends back, until he's apoplectic with rage. 

How _dare_ he. How _incredibly fucking dare_ he show up here, at this church, at _Louis's_ church, like this. Especially after everything that fell apart between them three short years ago. He's just sitting there like nothing's wrong, like he's actually listening to and enjoying the sermon, like he has _any right at all_ to show up.

The sermon ends, and Louis bolts from his seat. He goes and stands outside the doors, leaving Taylor and Niall behind without so much as a word of apology. Fingers twisting in the hem of his shirt, he waits for Harry's tell-tale loping gait.

Harry comes out in a crush of people. Louis grabs him by the upper arm, a little too tight, fingertips digging into the meat of Harry's flesh. "I have to talk to you," he grits out, dragging Harry out of the throng of people and off to the side. "Away from them."

Harry's eyes flash as he looks at Louis, but his expression is, ultimately, unreadable. "Are you dragging me away from them so you can kill me?"

It's a distinct possibility, so Louis doesn't answer the question. "Now," he says, releasing his hold on Harry's bicep.

Harry follows around to the back of the church, shaking his arm out as he does. "So you finally wanna talk, do you?"

It's been five days - six, if you're counting the first day, before Louis ran into Harry at all. If they were still in the type of relationship they'd been in three years ago, Louis would crack a joke about how dramatic Harry is.

As it is, the words prickle at him like splinters under his fingernails. There's no fond acknowledgement of Harry's foibles, just irritation and resentment. 

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks - demands - instead of acknowledging Harry's comment. He's vaguely conscious of the trail of people walking toward their cars not twenty feet off to the side, so he tries to keep his voice down.

"Um, it's church," Harry says, as if it should be obvious. "Of course I'm here."

"Since when do _you_ believe in God?" Louis hisses.

Harry crosses his arms and glares at Louis. "Since when do _you_ believe in _religion_?"

"I've always fucking _believed_ in religion," Louis snaps. "There's a pretty big fucking difference between believing and liking. This isn't even your family's church."

"It used to be," Harry says, obstinately. "I like it. And it's a free world. I can go to whatever church I like."

"So you just so happen to choose the one I go to," Louis says. "The one that - nevermind."

"No," Harry says. He licks his lips. They're very pink. Louis hadn't made up how pink they are in his memories. "Say it." He raises his eyebrows at Louis expectantly. "You were going to say that it's the church that was _so_ instrumental in ruining everything way back when, right? And that it's honestly astounding that I could show up here with that in mind, right? Even though," he adds, resentment coloring his every word, "You clearly never stopped coming here every week even when Pastor Parrish was _actively preaching against us_."

"You don't believe in God," Louis says. The fight feels like it's draining out of him. They've had this argument so many times before that, even though it's been years since they've hashed it all out, it's too fucking familiar. "Why would you put yourself through _this church_ in particular, which your mom hasn't even attended since Pastor Parrish was actively preaching against us, if you don't even believe?"

"Why would _you_?"

Louis presses his lips together to keep from shouting at Harry, a tight thin line. "I've told you this before," he says, slowly. "You used to know why."

"You have to stop living life like everyone's out to get you!" Harry snaps. His eyes are wide, wild, furious.

"I think experience has taught me that they _can be_ , in fact," Louis says. He doesn't live life like everyone's out to get him, he's pretty sure. He just likes to be prepared. In case. "You of all people should know that."

"So you go to a church you hate every week and force yourself to listen to the sermon you don't want to hear - because you might come up in it?"

"That's an incredibly fucking reductive way of looking at this situation," Louis says. "I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"Because you've never explained it to me!" Harry says, running a hand through his mess of a hair. "All you've ever done is yell about it."

"Because I _have_ explained it," Louis says. "A million times."

"Remind me," Harry snaps. "It's been three years. Remind me."

"I don't owe you anything after three years," Louis reminds him. "I don't owe you a single damned thing. I wouldn't have owed you anything after twenty _minutes_ after you left."

Harry sighs, and Louis glares, and they stand there in a tense silence for a few agonizing minutes. Louis takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a long moment and, when he opens them, he notices Niall and Taylor hovering, a couple yards off. Just far enough that it's clear they're interested in what's going on, but not trying to listen in.

"I have to go," Louis says, finally. "I drove Niall and Taylor here."

"Typical," Harry snorts, which Louis feels is an incredibly misplaced judgement; he's never been the one to walk away. 

"Fuck you," he says, calmly, and turns to go.

"I came here because it's familiar," Harry says, as Louis starts to walk away. Louis pauses, but doesn't turn back around. "And nothing else around here is familiar anymore."

It would be if Harry hadn't left. Louis doesn't feel sympathy for him. "So it wasn't because you're following me around or anything," he says, still looking away.

"No," Harry says, and because Louis isn't looking at him, he can't see whether Harry's trying to hide a lie. Probably for the best. He wouldn't want to know one way or the other if Harry actually means it.

"Right," Louis says, and walks away.

"Everything okay?" Niall asks, as Louis comes up and brushes past him and Taylor to head toward the truck. 

"He's a fucking dick," Louis says, going to unlock the doors.

"That looked… intense," Taylor says, gently, as she waits for Louis to reach across the truck cab and unlock the passenger-side door. 

"It's the same fucking fight we always have," Louis says. Blood is pounding through his ears, though; he feels hot and angry all over. Even though this was relatively tame, compared to his memory of the fights they had as they fell inexorably apart all those years ago. "I'm used to it."

"But you haven't seen him in a while," Taylor says. "Are you okay?"

"Sure," he says, shrugging dramatically.

As soon as both Taylor and Niall are in the car, he cranks up the patchy radio as loud as it can go, and speeds away from church, and doesn't say another word.

+++

"Do you still have feelings for him?" Taylor asks, dropping down onto the park bench next to Louis later that night. Niall has driven the three of them out closer to Barthell, so that she can see some of the ghost coal towns instead of, as she put it, 'staring at the static on the tv in my room all night.'

"I feel like that's more a question you ask someone you've known for longer than a week," Louis says, mildly.

"What can I say," Taylor says, laughing a little. "Daddy never taught me boundaries or, like, any other social mores like that." She doesn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. 

"I certainly have feelings of anger," Louis says. Her glib non-apology merits a glib response, he figures. 

"It's just," she says, scooting in a little closer to him. "If you care enough to not want to see him and you're still repeating the same fights from when you were in love…"

"Just drop it, okay, Taylor?" Louis snaps. Goosebumps are erupting all down his side where Taylor is pressed against him. He resists flinching away from her and, instead, experimentally pushes closer against her. He can feel every fiber in her dress against his leg. He can feel every hair on her arms tangling with his own. It's weird, is what it is.

"Lou," Niall says, sitting down on Louis's other side and slinging an arm around Louis's shoulders, tugging him into a hug. Louis uses it as an excuse to put some space between him and Taylor. He's still perplexed by the way she's like some electrical current to his body when he's close to her. "You're okay. Okay? Breathe."

"Sorry, Niall," Louis says, and sighs. "Sorry, Taylor." He fumbles for his cigarettes and lights one up, lets the stress built up along his spine melt away with each subsequent inhale. "Taylor, you seem like a nice enough girl, but we're hardly friends. Yet."

"We will be," Taylor says, simply, confidently. "Just give it a little more time." She stretches, waving the smoke from Louis's cigarette away from her face when he exhales. 

"Eh, don't mess with him," Niall says, squeezing Louis closer. "Louis is an old fusspot. He's no fun. You can be my friend instead."

Taylor laughs. "Of course," she says. "I'll take you up on that offer. So as a friend, maybe you can tell me why we're sitting in the dark getting eaten alive by mosquitos instead of at the local bar or whatever?"

"There is no local bar," Niall says. "Not for miles and miles around - there's a lot of dry counties in these parts. And the closest one is blocked off by water. So."

"Pity," Taylor says. She waves more smoke away from her face and pulls a dark shape out of her purse. It sloshes a little, and catches the glint of the light from the streetlight, flickering a hundred yards away at the edge of the parking lot. A liquor bottle, of some sort.

"Vodka?" Louis asks, incredulously. "Where did you get that?"

"Prayers do come true," Taylor says, shaking the bottle a little. "And no, it's just cheap whiskey. Sorry to disappoint."

"Cheap whiskey is my favorite," Niall says, reverently. "We can be _best_ friends, Taylor, screw this sadsack to my right."

"Oh, fuck you," Louis says. Something inside him unclenches a little, and he takes a deep, shuddery drag off his cigarette.

"Love you too," Niall says. He pulls up some music on his phone as Taylor cracks open the bottle and takes a sip. "Taylor, you're a fuckin' angel."

"That I am," Taylor says, passing the bottle over. "And don't you forget it."

 _This is okay_ , Louis tells himself, taking a swig and handing it over to Niall, the twang of some country princess filling the air. _I'm okay. I'm with friends. Harry isn't here. I don't ever have to talk to Harry again if I don't want to. It's okay._

+++

"No, I get it," Louis says on the phone, massaging his temples and taking a swig of instant coffee to try and chase his hangover away. "If it's still unsafe we certainly shouldn't open Blue Heron up again yet. But - will I be getting paid if there's no work? I have - there's bills, Marcie."

Marcie is quiet for a long time. "It's a tough situation, hon," she says. "You know there's not much money if people aren't coming in."

"Then pay me to clean up the fu - the town," Louis says. "Niall's whole yard is still underwater. He'll need money for repairs. He should be getting work, too."

Marcie sighs. "I know," she says. "I'll talk to HQ and see about getting at least partial pay. And hey - the water looks to be going down, right? Work will be open soon enough."

"Thanks," Louis says. "'Bye now."

He slams his phone down on the picnic table when Marcie hangs up, for effect. He should never have bought that land. There was never going to be a dream house or someone to share bills with. That wasn't ever going to happen. He should have known. He has too much money owed, and too little to spare.

"The problem is," Harry says, plunking a neatly-packed tupperware down on the table and digging in. It's his mom's famous macaroni salad. Louis used to love that fucking macaroni salad. "Nothing in McCreary County looks familiar anymore, and it's probably mostly the water but it's also the people. _You_ aren't familiar anymore. But when I saw the back of your head just now from across the way - when I saw it…" He trails off, full fork hovering over the container. Louis watches, dispassionately, as a piece of macaroni falls off the fork and bounces onto the table below.

"I don't care about your problems," Louis says, impatient with how long Harry's taking to search for his words. "Don't you get it?"

Harry freezes. Sitting very, very still, he says, "Hence why you aren't familiar to me, Louis. But like, you _looked_ like - just now, you looked like three years ago."

"I'm always poor and angry," Louis says, cooly. "That must be why."

"Look," Harry says. "I know you don't want to talk to me."

"Then why the fuck are you still here?" Louis asks. "Go talk to someone else. Go talk to Taylor Swift. She'll have enough questions to keep you going for hours."

"We have unfinished business," Harry says. "I'd like some closure first, if you're going to ignore me the rest of the time that I'm here."

"Which is how long, exactly?" Louis asks. Not waiting for an answer, he adds, "Anyway, you should have thought about that before you _left_."

"I'm back for good," Harry says, calmly, like he's not casually dropping a bomb in on Louis's entire world. "So you can't avoid me forever."

"No," Louis says, flatly. He's not sure if the word is in disbelief of Harry's claim or just in reaction to it. He's not sure that it matters. "No. You're wrong."

Harry sighs. He looks tired all of a sudden, and older. The laugh lines etched at the corners of his eyes droop. "I'll respect your boundaries," he says. "But I won't avoid the town. I won't avoid church, Louis."

"Not your church."

"I've literally spent the last three years as a missionary of the church," Harry says. "I'm pretty sure it's my church."

Louis snorts, softly. "Selling a religion you don't even believe in to people who don't need it. Classic."

"It's not the religion I don't believe in and you know that," Harry says, sharply. "If you have cause to go to that church, then so do I."

"Fine," Louis says. "Don't sit in my pew. Don't sit on my half of the entire fucking church. And _don't_ try to evangelize to _me_."

Harry nods. He's quiet for a long time, and Louis is just about to stand and walk away when Harry puts his fork into his tupperware and looks up. "Saw Lottie at the Cracker Barrel. She's so old now."

"That's what happens when you leave for three years," Louis says, still terse. "Kids grow up."

"Gave me a piece of her mind, she did," Harry says. "A lot of people around here still love you, you know."

Louis breathes out through his nose, hard. "That is an incredibly fucked up thing to say," he says, clenching both his hands into fists and breathing through the pain of his nails digging into his palms. "Firstly because of course my sisters wouldn't ever stop loving me and you know that. Secondly because I _know_ most people around here still like me, because I have _worked_ in this fucking community for _five years_ and lived here for eighteen before that, and I have established a _name for myself_. I go to church every Sunday. I sell them bullets and play them music and take them on tours of their fucking heritage, Harry, people here _know me_ and _trust me_ and even if they don't accept my bisexuality they still accept _me_ because I have _put in the fucking work_. It has been a long, long fucking road, but I have been _traveling that road_."

"So you're saying they don't know me anymore so they'll shun me?" Harry asks, incensed all over again. "Wow, Louis."

"Just because I'm in a certain situation doesn't mean that yours could possibly compare," Louis says. He pushes back from the table, swinging his legs over the bench and standing up. "Egotistical much?"

"Don't worry," Harry says. "I won't make the mistake of acting familiarly toward you again."

"Good," Louis snaps.

"Good," Harry returns, pushing his half-full thing of macaroni salad to the side.

"Good!" Louis yells, striding off to find someone - anyone - else.

+++

As the water recedes, it leaves behind a vicious, viscous mud that quickly churns up with the occasional rainstorm and foot traffic into a hot and sticky soup. Taylor loses a shoe in it one day; on another, a log, swollen with water and beginning to rot, comes floating down the remaining floodwaters and bashes into Old Man Grimshaw's van, knocking it axle-deep into the muck.

Louis's mom has him and Niall over for a big family dinner where everyone they know is invited as long as they bring a dish; Taylor tags along with some cookies that she's whipped up in the kitchenette of Louis's single-wide. 

"How much longer you gonna stay with us, hon?" Louis's mom asks, as Taylor plants herself firmly in the kitchen and offers to help whip up the potatoes. "Now that the water's going down?" She gives Louis a significant look over Taylor's shoulder, like she thinks something's going on between the two of them. He shakes his head at her, a quick, abortive jerk that he stops as soon as Taylor twists to throw a smile their way.

"Oh, I think I'll still have work to do here, Ms Tomlinson," Taylor says. "Even when the water's all gone. There's all sorts of things ready to receive God's work."

"Ain't that the truth," Louis's mom says. This time, she and Taylor share significant looks.

"Right," Louis says. "I'm gonna go get a beer."

"We're fresh out," his mom says, apologetically. " _Someone_ got a little to happy with it, and there's been no time for me _or_ Dan to drive all the way around the flood to go get more."

"Ugh," Louis says, and then shouts, " _Lottie!_ "

"Love you too, big bro," she says, coming into the kitchen on a cloud of achingly sweet floral perfume. She comes to abrupt stop as soon as she sees Taylor. "Who's that?" she asks, and turns to Taylor. "Who are _you_."

"Taylor Swift," Niall says, coming in through from the truck, a half-empty little bottle of rotgut in hand. He shakes it toward everyone in the kitchen. "From Nashville, Tennessee. She's with flood relief."

"Well, thank you for the introduction, Niall," Taylor says. She extends a hand to shake Lottie's, red red lips curling into a smile as Lottie meets her halfway. "You must be the eldest of Louis's sisters. Right?"

"Eldest pain in my ass," Louis says, but he gives Lottie a hug as he says it. "Hey, sis."

"Hey, bro," she says. She's still staring at Taylor, an unreadable expression on her face. It takes her a moment to drop her hand. "Lots of static electricity in here today, mama. Dehumidifier working overtime?"

"Hmmm," Louis's mom says. "I could check it out. Or Dan, when he gets home."

"I'll go," Louis offers. He'd take Lottie aside, say something about how maybe Taylor generates static electricity, but that would be - that wouldn't make any kind of sense. No matter how true it feels, it can't actually be the case. Right? "Y'all just finish making my dinner."

"Oh, get out of here," Niall says, from where he's raiding the fridge for mixers. "Everyone knows I'm Jay's real favorite son here. Besides Ernie, I guess."

"It's true," Lottie says, refocusing and smiling at Louis. "He's useful, at least."

"Well," Louis says. "I'll just go try to earn my keep, won't I?"

When he goes, though, Lottie follows. "Saw Harry," she says, as Louis pokes at the dehumidifier. He doesn't know jack shit about how they work, but there's not a lot of water collecting in the basin, so it doesn't make sense that the air would be dry enough for a lot of static.

As he expected.

"Me, too," Louis tells Lottie, wiping his fingers off on his shorts. "Can't escape the asshole."

"You okay?" she asks, looking up at him through her smudgy lashes, one hand on her hip. "Like - are you going to, um. You know?"

"I'm not going to lock myself in my room for two weeks, chain-smoking and crying, and then go out into the woods to find myself and end up hurt, no," Louis assures her. "And I've already impulse-bought ten acres with no buildings on it for dirt cheap. I'm not going to do that again."

"That doesn't necessarily mean you'll be okay, Lou," Lottie says. "You were in a bad way for so long, before."

"Well," Louis says, and sighs. "It's not easy. I won't lie. But Niall's staying with me for now, even though the water's down far enough that he could probably get to Bobby's, and I think that's because he's looking out for me."

"He's a good best friend," Lottie allows, but there's a questioning edge to her voice.

"Yes," Louis agrees, voice sharp. "A good best _friend_. And Taylor's a good _new_ friend. And Harry is an ex I won't have anything else to do with. Including sleeping with one of my friends to spite him."

"No need to get all het up," Lottie says, frowning. "I'm just looking out for you, too."

Louis forces himself to take a deep breath, and lets it out in a sigh. "I know," he says, and he wraps her in a big bear hug. "I know. Thank you."

They stand like that for a few minutes before going back into the kitchen.

+++

The day 27 clears up is the day Louis and Niall are called back to work. "Trains still ain't running," Annie tells them when they get in. "But people can get here from out of town now, so. Limited hours. Make sure everything's shipshape."

Taylor texts them regularly from the flood recovery sites. Now that the water levels are lower, they can start gutting the houses that got hit the worst: pumping water out of basements and cellars, hauling soaked furniture out and cleaning up the rest, ripping out carpets and soggy walls and replacing the insulation and drywall as necessary. 

_Harry and I are on the same project_ she texts Louis. _He's asking about where you are. Should I tell him???_

 _absolutely not_ Louis sends, but he thinks better of it a few minutes of deep reflection on why the fuck Harry might even care where Louis is later. _or whatever. do you. i dont care about him or what he knows._

"When do you think Liam will make his way back from Pine Knot?" Niall asks, as they wipe some cobwebs down from some of the buildings. 

"Soon, I hope," Louis says. Being at work, so far away from Harry and the flood and everything that's been weighing him down is freeing, in a way, so much so that he feels a little guilty about it. His fingertips ache with the need to play music again. Nothing's stopping him, he supposes, but it's always better with Liam. "I miss making music."

" _I_ miss being scheduled regularly," Niall says. "Did you take a look at when we're both in next?"

"No," says Louis. "Is it a ways away?"

"Yeah." Niall pulls out his water bottle and takes a long swig. "We're not back in again till, like, next week. Everyone's been wanting pay, I guess, and they have a lot of the old-timers come in on the limited scheduling instead."

"I don't see why they couldn't do full staff," Louis grumbles, even though he can. Even though it makes sense that him and Niall, as the youngest and strongest, would be set free to be able to work on flood relief more often than not. Deborah and Shelly were completely flooded, too. They need the cash even more than Louis or Niall do.

"Think of it this way," Niall says. "When Harry inevitably makes his way back to Blue Heron, you probably won't be here."

"True," Louis says, but somehow, it doesn't quite feel like a victory.

+++

The problem, Louis decides, is that he's busy engaging in unfamiliar conversations. After years of carefully curating the easy cadence of thoughts and words he's shared a million times before, having the flood rip through the town on the same day that Harry came back and Taylor showed up has completely destroyed any sense of familiarity that he has with his own day-to-day.

Taylor, for one, is an enigma. Half of the time Louis looks up, it's like she's whispering in Harry's ear. The other half, she's straddling the bench Louis is sitting on, leaning over to him and talking him through finer points of Biblical interpretation. And it's never the same points, either. One day it's how the power of prayer works; the next, it's about whether God acts directly or indirectly when He works his miracles; on yet another, she's just crossing her arms and frowning at Louis and telling him, "God never goes out of style, Tomlinson," apropos of nothing. It's gotten to the point that Louis tries to motion Eleanor over whenever Taylor shows up, because El, at least, can match her on debating the finer points of theology in a much more engaging way than Louis could ever hope to manage.

Once, Taylor shows up to clean up the waterlogged branches that have been dragged all over the flooded yards in a tight little skirt with her red, red lips and tells Mrs. MacIntosh, very loudly, that she can be a stellar Christian in the clothes she wears because she still has her good girl faith, regardless of her clothes.

And then, of course, there's Harry. He doesn't try to speak to Louis anymore, but the very fact of his presence means that people are trying to dance around the subject of him in their conversations with Louis in entirely new ways, each and every day. 

"I need something familiar," he tells Liam over the phone, the morning that Liam calls to tell him that he'll be making the trek back to Stearns soon, now that the water levels have gone down enough that 27 is mostly safely traversable. "Just for a minute. Not something else that's new."

"So I guess now isn't the time to tell you that the girl I've been seeing in Pine Knot is Cheryl," Liam says.

"Who the fuck is Cheryl?" Louis asks, completely sidetracked from what had been a very nicely-building rant about how off-kilter everything has been feeling lately.

"Um, remember the librarian from back in school? Ms Cole?"

"Liam," Louis says, after a long moment of stunned silence. He can't picture that at _all_. Completely putting aside the way she's, like, ten years older than him, she never seemed to even like Liam best, particularly out of the five of them, back in Louis's last year of high school. He can't even fathom how Liam got to the point of asking her _out_. "Bro. With all due respect, I love you but I literally cannot deal with this news right now."

"Louis," Liam says, chidingly. 

"Liam," Louis drawls back. "I support you and your cougar-hunting. I do. But I have to go now and process _this_ , too."

"See you in a few days, asshole," Liam says. He doesn't sound like he minds, which is a relief. 

"Bring booze and I'll let you catch me up on how, exactly, this came to pass," Louis says, and hangs up.

He puts his phone down gently, rolls onto his back, and screams, a primitive, guttural yell. _That_ , at least, feels a little bit familiar.

+++

"Look," Niall says, fidgeting a little. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"

"With you going to stay with your _dad_ , who you _miss_ , for the night?" Louis asks. "No, this is unconscionable and I won't allow it. There's no way I could possibly get through a single night without you at this point, Nialler, don't leave me."

Niall rolls his eyes at Louis, but he relaxes a little. "You just want me to take your laundry with me to wash."

"Yeah, and I also want the groceries Bobby will send back with you," Louis says. "I am sick to fucking death of freeze-dried tacos and shit."

"Touché," Niall says. He sighs a little, then pulls Louis into a bear hug. "I'll see you after church tomorrow, okay? Waffle House is calling to us."

"Those hashbrowns are certainly calling to us," Louis agrees. He claps Niall on the back and follows him onto the little porch steps, and watches as Niall drives away. It's stopped raining enough lately for the tires of his jeep to kick up dust on intermittent gravel-and-dirt of Louis's makeshift driveway, rather than the standard spray of mud. 

If there were any beer left in his entire house, Louis would consider sitting outside with his banjo and cracking a can open, trying to breathe and relax and let the past few weeks go. The oppressive heat has lifted a little, and even though the cicadas are loud as ever, they're a welcome relief from the sound of rain. As it is, he just stands on his porch and surveys his land, and the way the sun slants golden through the trees and over the field. 

He should do something with it, maybe. He'd planned to, at one point. There was going to be a garden, big enough for canning and preserves, and two giant dogs and a couple of cats. He'd had plans to dig out a basement and sneak a still in there. Build a house big enough for everyone, with a couple rooms left over just in case.

But then again, he hadn't planned on doing it alone.

Shaking his head, he goes back into the single-wide. He'll miss Niall now that he's used to the guy being in his bed every night, but this is a great opportunity to catch up on some quality porn time.

He hasn't gone three steps inside, though, when the sound of gravel kicking up beneath tires comes through the door, followed by the low squeal of brakes in need of a tune-up and an engine cutting off.

"Couldn't leave me alone for even twenty minutes, could you, Horan?" Louis asks, turning around as the car door slams.

But it's not the jeep, and it's not Niall. It's a little off-blue sedan - an unfamiliar one - and standing next to it is Harry fucking Styles.

"The fuck are you doing here?" Louis demands, stepping back outside and closing the door behind him. "This here's private property. You're _trespassing_."

"Um," Harry says. He stares at Louis for a long few minutes, then blinks and glances around, slackjawed. "I'm - why are you here?"

"I live here," Louis says, slowly, like he's explaining it to the younger twins. "This is my house. This is my yard. You are standing in my driveway. What's your excuse?"

"I, um." Harry says. "I wanted to - you know. We were talking about buying… this. Someday. I wanted to see if someone had gotten hold of it while I was gone."

"Someone did," Louis says, shortly.

"I can see that," Harry says, frowning. There's a line etched deep between his eyes when he does. There was a time when Louis could have smoothed it out with his thumb. There was a time when the sudden, wild urge to do so would have been appropriate. 

And yet, here he is, ten yards or one impassible, yawning chasm away, depending on how you look at it.

"So," Louis says. "You've seen it. You can go."

"Where's the cabin?" Harry asks, fully ignoring Louis to turn and look around, like there's another building waiting to just pop out of the ground and wave at him. "There was going to be a cabin."

"There isn't one," Louis says. He doesn't elaborate on the reasons why. Harry doesn't need to know.

Harry doesn't seem to care that he doesn't get to know, though. "Well, have you broken ground yet?" he asks. He casts a look over the single-wide, more of a quick glance than due consideration. "Or are you still saving up?"

"I already have a home," Louis says, shortly. "I don't need to go off building any others."

"But you had all these plans -" Harry says slowly, frowning.

Louis cuts him off before he can finish his thought. " _We_ had plans, Harry," he says, shortly. "The house at the treeline, the gardens and the shelter in the woods and that fucking batting cage and everything. But when I bought this property _on my own_ , I decided to make new plans."

"You live in a trailer," Harry says. "How is that an effective plan?"

"It suits me just fine," Louis says, tersely. "It's been suiting Niall just fine, too. It's enough. I don't need anything fancy."

"You shouldn't have to _settle_ ," Harry snaps, the line between his eyebrows deeper than ever. 

"What, so you care for my well-being now?" Louis demands. He balls his hands into fists and puts them on his hips, subtly digging his thumbnail into his side to help ground himself.

Harry deflates, suddenly. "I'm sorry," he says, and sighs. "I was taken aback by you being here. I don't know what I expected, coming to the land out here, but it wasn't to see you living in a trailer, apparently with… with your _best friend_ Niall Horan." He makes quote marks with his fingers on the word best friend, voice high-pitched as he says it. Louis is about to call him out on it, but Harry persists. "I just - I'll leave you alone, Lou, since you clearly don't want me here. And I get that. I do. I was hoping we could work some things out - it's been _three years_ \- but if you don't want that, I won't push it. I'll go."

Louis sighs. "First of all, you're a dick," he says, digging the nail in deeper. "Niall has been the best _best_ friend a guy could ask for, particularly in the past few years. He's here because he ain't been able to get to his parent's houses with that flood and, well." He takes a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound, he supposes. If Harry can be somewhat-honest and somewhat-cordial between all of his little passive-aggressive digs, Louis can, too, and he'll be better at _all_ of it. "He's also been here because he's been providing me with _moral support_ during a _difficult time_ in my life. Specifically a time where my ex boyfriend, who hasn't even tried to talk to me _once_ since he skipped out of town, comes back acting all hurt that I'm not leaping straight into his arms, or whatever."

Harry shouts, "That's not -" and then frowns, takes a deep breath, and repeats himself, more quietly and calmly. "That's not what I'm trying to do."

"Then please explain to me what it is you _are_ trying to do," Louis says. 

"I just," Harry says, and sighs. "I just, I missed you, okay? And what we had, because it was good there, for a while, wasn't it? And I was hoping -" He sighs again and pushes a hand through his long, long hair. Louis can't stop himself from tracking the motion with his eyes. "But I can see that I was wrong."

"There's no way you could have expected to pick up where we left off," Louis says, flatly. "Not after the way you left."

"No, but I was hoping we could at least try to start from scratch," Harry admits. "Not, like, necessarily boyfriends. But we were friends, too, for years. I was hoping we could have that again."

Louis considers telling Harry that he didn't just break his heart - he destroyed it. Once you destroy something, there's no building it back up. Harry could understand that, maybe. But that sounds melodramatic and too much like a confession Louis doesn't want to make. 

He sits down on one of the steps leading to the single-wide's door, frowning as he works through how exactly to make it clear to Harry that the only thing that will ever exist between them now is space. "Sit down," he says, eventually, gesturing to the spot next to him. "I'll talk."

" _Thank_ you," Harry says, coming over, close enough that Louis can feel his body heat. The hair on his arms stands on end, like Harry's got some kind of fucking magnetic pull, as Harry moves into Louis's personal space and sits down with a thump. Louis, knowing that his entire body goes haywire whenever Taylor edges close to him, does not want to learn what will happen when Harry brushes against him, even after all this time. So he carefully maintains a several-inch gap between them.

Even with that gap, his traitorous insides twist and clench uncomfortably. "It won't be a good talk," he warns. "You won't like it."

"Any talk is better than no talk," Harry says, stoutly. His t-shirt sleeve brushes against Louis's arm and Louis, despite himself, shivers. It's not even his _skin_ , just a baggy bit of fabric. Harry smells so, so familiar, in a distant and far-off sort of way that triggers all of Louis's sense memories. The last time they sat like this, they ended up kissing.

But that's neither here nor there. It won't happen again. Louis isn't letting his defences down by talking to Harry instead of just reacting and yelling - he's building them up. Right? He's got to, what with the unwavering sense of betrayal still burrowing deep in his belly. "The thing is, Harry, I don't think I can ever forgive you for leaving the way you did."

"Would it have helped if I actually said goodbye?" Harry asks, tentatively. "Instead of letting us be in the middle of a fight when my time came."

"Those last three months were in the middle of one long fight, consistently, it feels like," Louis says. "You were always going to leave in the middle of it."

"Yeah, but I could have at least given both of us some closure," Harry insists. His hands are spread open wide, palm down on his knees, dirty nails and sun-browned skin stark against the denim of his ratty jeans. "I didn't have to leave as abruptly as I did."

"Yeah, but you did leave that way, Harry, okay?" Louis says, wresting his eyes away from Harry's broad knuckles and focusing on the treeline instead. "I can't know if it would have been different, because you didn't leave any other way. You wouldn't have. It's not your style to confront when you can just… walk away. Take the path of least resistance. Avoid one more argument by disappearing."

"Hey, I'm confronting you now," Harry points out, but he quails at the dark look Louis shoots him. "Sorry." They're quiet for a long moment, before Harry twists to look at Louis directly. "So to be perfectly clear," he says, "What you're saying is, it wouldn't have made any difference. Right?"

"I don't know," Louis says, staunchly not meeting Harry's eyes. But he does know, he realizes, so he sighs and turns to meet Harry face-on. "I mean, no. You're right. It didn't matter how you left, really. It mattered that you did. I can't forgive you for going."

"I wouldn't have been able to forgive you for making me stay," Harry says, eyes wide, frank. He's so honest. He's always been so honest. Louis hadn't forgotten how honest Harry is, always, but he certainly isn't used to it anymore, and his gut clenches at the way Harry is earnest about sharing his truths - even ones Louis doesn't want to hear.

That was always the way Louis got sucked in, before. He can't get sucked in again now. He clears his throat. "Then I guess we're at an impasse," he says. "It couldn't have happened any other way, I guess. But I can never forgive you, because it _did_ happen, Harry. You did leave."

"You must hate me," Harry says, wistfully. His eyes keep darting around the land when he thinks Louis isn't paying attention, always sliding back around to the tree where Harry once pushed Louis against the rough trunk and kissed him deeply, pushing up his McCreary Central High t-shirt and biting his way down Louis's belly. 

It hadn't been their first blowjob, but it had been the one after they decided they wanted to be together forever, move in for real, brave the town's judgement.

"I'm tired," Louis says. "I'm too tired to hate you, but I can't stop resenting you."

"Ouch," Harry says, clutching a fist to his chest. He sounds serious about it, too, not flippant like when he was always mock-hurt as a kid. "I understand."

"You don't." Louis is certain of that. He's also certain that sitting here in the quiet of the evening with Harry at his side doesn't suck as much as he'd been dreading, now that they're not shouting at each other. Now that they're having heavy conversation without deliberately trying to hurt each other in the process. "But it's okay."

"Is it?" Harry asks, eyebrows furrowed with concern.

Louis closes his eyes and rubs at his temples with the palms of his hands. "I don't know. Okay? I'm just so tired, Haz. I'm tired of being mad all the time. I'm tired of us yelling at each other. It's exhausting."

"But you can't forgive me for leaving."

"That's what I've been _saying_ " Louis snaps, reflexively. He groans. "Ugh. Sorry."

"Truce?" Harry asks, tentatively. "We stop fighting. I can, like, avoid you if that's what you really need, I guess. Not fighting all the time is a good step, I think."

Louis's eyes fly open and he looks over at Harry. "Um. I guess?" There's a headache setting in, deep in his skull. The day is catching up to him, and suddenly all he wants is to go to bed. "Okay."

"Okay," Harry says, extending a work-roughened hand. "Truce."

"Truce," Louis agrees. It takes him a long moment of fierce, internal debate before he capitulates and gives Harry's hand one firm shake. His palm tingles at the touch, heat rushing through his body, and he drops Harry's hand, quickly. 

Hurt flashes across Harry's eyes, but Louis ignores it, and Harry returns his hands to his knees.

They sit in silence for a few drawn-out, awkward minutes before Harry nods decisively to himself and pushes off the step, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot as he stands. "Right," he says. "Just, uh. Just tell me what you need from me? Avoiding you-wise. And I'll respect that. Just try not to yell."

Louis shrugs, hiking his legs up close to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, propping his chin up on his knees. He can't quite place how he's feeling right now, but pulling himself into a little ball of a person feels appropriate in this moment, like it's helping him keep everything together, like he's protecting his insides from being laid bare and raw from finally, _finally_ confronting his biggest demon as calmly as possible, instead of just yelling to keep him away. 

He sits there like that until Harry goes over to his car. 

"See you around, Styles," he calls, as Harry gets in.

He watches until Harry's car is out of sight before he goes back inside.

+++

Niall picks Louis up on their way to helping Old Man Grimshaw rip out all of his carpets the next day. Kid Rock is pumping from his speakers; Louis winces and quickly pushes the emergency John Prine cassette into the tape deck and hits play.

"How's Bobby?" he asks, gravel spitting under the tires as Niall speeds back to the road. They hit a particularly nasty pothole and Niall whoops. 

"He's great!" Niall says. "Saw the nephew and the niece, too. Got another thing of moonshine for us. Shot some cans with Bobby. Slept like a baby. 100 percent." He punctuates that last by slapping his hand down on his horn, jeep tooting its support of his grand old night.

"So you gonna be leaving me for home, then?" Louis asks, nonchalant. "'Cause it sounds to me like you missed your own bed."

"You're the best bedmate a guy could ask for!" Niall says, punching Louis gently in the leg. "Except, you know, for a sexy bedmate. A sexmate."

"A Justin Bieber," Louis supplies, and Niall cackles.

"Exactly!" he says. "How were you last night? Were you a sadsack without me? Did you go to your mom's at all?"

"Nah," Louis says. "I took up the whole dang bed and had a grand old time by myself. Fried me some sausage in baked beans for dinner. Entertained the surprise company of someone who wanted this land for himself, once."

Niall's laugh cuts off abruptly. "No one has ever wanted this land except for you and Harry," he says. "You got it for dirt cheap, relatively speaking."

"Exactly," Louis says, as calm and even-keeled as he can manage. "Sat on the stoop and had it out and everything."

Niall pulls over at the driveway to the Malik's old ramshackle home and cuts the engine, twisting around to face Louis directly. "Lou, I'm sorry I wasn't here for that. Are you okay?"

"No, no, I'm fine," Louis says, flapping his hand. "We called a truce. I guess that's, um." He takes a deep breath. To his chagrin, it's shuddery, and obviously so. "I guess that's a bit of closure, then."

Niall frowns. "You never once said anything about needing more or different closure," he says. 

"Thought I had all that I needed," Louis says. He shrugs, an abortive half-ripple of his shoulders. "You can keep driving. I'm fine."

"You know Harry is going to be there," Niall says, cautiously. He turns his key in the ignition, starting his jeep again, but he doesn't take it out of neutral. 

"I'm _fine_ ," Louis insists. "Move so your fucking a/c works, dude."

Niall's lips thin, and he nods, but he eases back onto the road. They're quiet as he drives, observing speed limits this time, along to the edge of the flooding destruction. John Prine warbles on quietly in the background; fittingly, the song is about another county on the Kentucky-Tennessee border that was also laid destitute by Big Coal, one on the west side of the state. Louis has always loved this song, and he's always loved Prine's original version better than any of the millions of covers out there. There's something so familiar about the childhood experience of hunting soda bottles in snake country, about the abandoned buildings and backwards towns dotting the hills.

He turns the volume up and closes his eyes and lets the music wash over him.

All too soon, Niall pulls to a stop and parks the car. Louis opens his eyes when the music shuts off, and looks out across the people in their waders stomping through the muck outside. "Right," he says, and opens his door.

Niall reaches over before Louis can climb out, and puts his hand on Louis's shoulder. "I'm here for you," he says, quietly, urgently. "You know that, right? Anything you need."

Louis smiles at him. The smile is small, but honest. "I know," he says, and kicks the door open wider. "Love you, man."

Niall gives him a long, searching look before nodding and releasing his hold on Louis's shoulder. "Love you too, bro," he says.

+++

Working flood relief, as it turns out, is even more miserable once all the water subsides. So many of the houses affected belong to older residents, ones that couldn't drag their furniture up above the floodline before everything got ruined. There are deep freezers, defrosted and drowned and filled with soft and smelly venison haunches. There are sump pumps that got too flooded to work, and furnaces and hot water heaters that aren't safe to turn on at all anymore. There's drywall that's been completely eaten away to the fiberglass-ridden insulation beneath.

Louis is up to his fucking _elbows_ in rotting carpet, and that's completely discounting all the padding still stuck to the inverted nails on the floor. "I'm so glad I had the foresight to bring work gloves," he announces, to the room at large, wiping the sweat that's been collecting on his forehead away with his forearm. 

No one answers, and when he looks around, he realizes that everyone has trickled out of the room. He sighs, and stomps his way up the stairs, trying not to lose his balance and get buried under shit that was gross - uncleaned and stained from all of Old Man Grimshaw's pets - even when the reservoir was in perfect condition. 

When he throws his armload onto the pile of trash sitting in the least-muddy part of the yard, he can see pretty much everyone working today gathered around the relief aid workers' trestle tables of food a couple of yards away. 

Specifically, he can see Harry standing there, hair hanging limp and sweaty and free loose around his face, and Taylor hovering close, tank top tucked into her booty shorts and hair pushed back with a dirty bandana. Can see Harry toss his head back, hair flying out, as he tries to throw gummies up and catch them in his mouth.

Can see the way that one particularly ambitious attempt falls flat into the mud below, and the way that Taylor throws her head back and laughs, putting a hand - manicure chipped and fingers dirty from sorting through Old Man Grimshaw's possessions to see what can be saved - on her belly.

It's like, all of a sudden, Louis understands what 'uproarious' means, watching Taylor crack up at Harry's general ineptitude. 

It's like, all of a sudden, Louis understands how jealousy can run hot and consume every fiber of your awareness, how it can feel like a sucker-punch to the gut: sudden, painful, all-consuming. 

Almost before he can even begin to think through anything at all, Louis rips off one of his gloves and pulls his phone out of his pocket, texting Taylor as quickly as his thumb can allow. _Can u help me with the carpet_ , he sends, only glancing down from the tableau in front of him long enough to make sure there aren't any egregious autocorrect errors. 

She doesn't even reach for her phone, just puts a hand on Harry's shoulder, trying to steady herself and grab for Harry's gushers at the same time. He resists for a long moment, and then hands one over.

Taylor gets it into her mouth on the first try, and smiles smugly as Harry splutters, eyes crinkled with mirth and faux-indignation. Louis isn't close enough to make out anything else beyond that, but he's fairly certain that Harry's eyes are also bright, sparkling, soft and happy at the edges.

 _Fucking good for him,_ Louis thinks, and texts Taylor, _Pls?_.

He's well aware that he's being irrational, is the thing. He has no cause to feel upset to his core that a beautiful girl who's becoming a friend is getting along so well with Louis's beautiful, terrible ex. 

His conversation with Harry the other day was supposed to absolve Louis of feeling any big emotions about the guy anymore at all - no more anger, no more fury, no more rage. Coexistence, since Harry isn't going away anytime soon: that was the aim. 

And yet here he is, wanting to do something thoroughly dramatic to get Harry and Taylor to stop leaning into each other and _smiling_ like that.

 _Nvm I guess_ , he texts Taylor, and shoves his phone in his pocket to go back inside.

Five minutes into muttering under his breath and ripping up the soggy carpet padding, he hears the shuffling clunk of someone descending the stairs carefully.

"Everything okay, Lou?" Taylor asks, crouching down and peering into the room. 

"Fine," Louis bites out, ripping up another swath of padding. It rips out so easily, but it drips a disgusting brown water onto the ground when he tries to bundle it into his arms. 

That's probably a divine fucking metaphor, Louis decides. Because God is still an asshole.

"I can see that," she says, gently, and moves in to help stabilize his armload. "You can take a break for food, you know," she adds. "Everyone else has."

"Looks like you and Harry had that covered," Louis grumbles. 

Taylor stares at him for a long, long moment. "That doesn't even make any sense," she says, finally. "It's not like we're eating in stages."

Louis sighs and frowns down at the disintegrating pile of yuck in his arms. "I mean, is there space for anyone else there, with how you two were acting?"

"Goodness gracious," Taylor says, lifting a perfectly-plucked eyebrow at him. "That was hostile."

Biting his lip, Louis resigns himself to being completely unreasonable in this situation. He drops his armload on the ground in a wet little _flump_. "Sorry," he says, in a particularly unapologetic tone of voice. "What I mean to say is, do the two of you have something going on? Between you?"

Taylor bursts into startled laughter. It lasts long enough, Louis staring at her in surprise and steadily-growing anger, that she ends up having to lean over and brace herself with her hands on her knees. "Gosh, Louis," she says, finally straightening up and wiping at the corners of her eyes. "Wow. Okay. Um. Which side of that equation would be a problem for you?"

Louis stares at her for a long moment, at her red, red lips and the wisps of her hair coming free of her bandana, at the stretch of leg between the cuff of her shorts and the high-rise of her waders. 

Without saying anything, he takes off his gloves carefully and shoves them in his back pocket, pushing past her and going up the stairs.

He heads directly for the food table and for Harry, who is still standing there, fiddling with the pull tab of a can of soda, flicking it back and forth. "Come here," he says, and waits until he's sure Harry is following him before going out to the back of Old Man Grimshaw's shed. 

"What's this?" Harry asks, folding his arms and leaning against the chipping paint of the shed walls.

"Do you have a thing for her?" Louis demands, crossing his arms as well, tapping his right index finger against his left bicep steadily, rapidly.

"What?" Harry asks, eyes wide open. "Who?"

"Taylor," Louis snaps, impatient. "Do you?"

"Do _you_?" Harry asks incredulously. 

"I'm asking the fucking questions here, Harry."

"I'm _gay_ , Louis," Harry says. "Not bi like you. You _know_ this. You know this better than _anyone else_ here. And in case it has escaped your notice, Taylor is a woman."

"Yeah, but Taylor has that thing," Louis says. "That, like, static electricity thing whenever you touch her." An odd look crosses Harry's face, but he doesn't make to say anything, so Louis barrels on. "You know, how it's all goosebumps and raised hair when she gets too close. You might be into that. I don't know."

Harry blinks at Louis, long and slow. "Even if I were into that," he says, "she's not my type."

"Sounds like something someone who has a thing for Taylor Swift would say," Louis says, obstinate.

"That… really doesn't make any sense," Harry says. That's the second time in ten minutes that someone's said that to Louis. People really need to stop telling Louis that he doesn't make sense. Slowly, as if he's coming to some kind of realization, he says, "You really will never trust me again, will you? Anything I say. Anything I've ever said."

"How _can_ I?" Louis blurts, uncrossing and re-crossing his arms. 

"I've never once lied to you," Harry counters. "Why would I start now?"

"I dunno, to keep the peace?" Louis says. He's feeling very much as if he's fighting a losing battle.

But it was lost far before he even began, probably. He'd made a pledge to not fight, or to go into things automatically defensively, and here he is, not twenty-four hours later, breaking that pledge. Of course he wouldn't be winning this battle. His keel is too uneven. 

"I'm not even going to fight you on this," Harry says, after a long, long moment. "You'll never believe anything I say, anyway."

Louis calls Niall as soon as Harry has trudged completely out of sight. "I need to go home," he says, as soon as Niall picks up. "I need space. I need to not be here. Take me home, Nialler."

"Meet you at the jeep in five," Niall says immediately, and hangs up. 

Niall is waiting for him by the time he gets there. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asks, as Louis climbs inside.

"I'm a fucking idiot," Louis says, but he doesn't elaborate. "Take me home, please. Let's drink that moonshine."

"Will you want to talk about it when you're drunk?" Niall asks, putting the car in gear and driving away from the wreckage - of the flood, of Louis's past, of everything. 

"Maybe," Louis says and, to his utter dismay, his eyes well up.

He blinks the tears away, though, and sets his jaw firm so that he doesn't start to cry.

+++

"I knew it would be hard," Louis says, cracking a can of the blessed beer Eleanor managed to wrangle up open and taking a long, cool pull. "I did. I just didn't realize it would be _this_ hard."

"You knew it would be this hard," she says, tilting her head so that it's resting on his shoulder and pulling her legs up next to her on the bench. "You just were hoping it wouldn't be."

"You know me so well," Louis says, draping an arm around her shoulders. His fingers tangle in her long hair, but he doesn't bother himself with extricating them.

"Mmmm," she says. "Yeah. I guess I do, Tomlinson." She clinks the edge of her can against his and takes a long sip. "I know you well enough to know I can shotgun one of these things _so_ much better than you can."

"Please," Louis says. "It's not even worth trying. I know you can do it, too."

Eleanor laughs, a full belly laugh, and sinks further against his side. "Your land is so nice," she says. "Thanks for inviting me out here. Y'know. Again."

"Yeah, well," says Louis. He doesn't point out that she's been here before, because that's part of the thing he's so hushed up about with her. "Thought I'd get your read on the new girl."

"Oh, right," Eleanor says, her voice rich with amusement. "The one you think Harry has a thing for? The one I've already met, like, twenty times?"

"The one I _know_ Harry has a thing for," Louis corrects. 

"Even though he's gay."

Louis sighs. "God. I'm such - I don't know what came over me."

"I have a suspicion," Eleanor says, stroking Louis's knee under the hem of his basketball shorts. 

"You always do," Louis says, and shakes his head. "Anyway, you'd be into her, too, and you're straight."

"No matter how many times you suggest it, I still won't have a college lesbian phase for your general entertainment!" Eleanor punctuates her words with a laugh, and Louis laughs, too.

"You're out of college now, though," he points out, and she shrugs. 

"So are you into her?" she asks. "You sounded like it was preposterous, but if you think both me and Harry - neither of whom like girls - should be…"

"I don't think it's into her so much as confused by her," Louis admits. "She's - there's something weird about her, El."

"Confused by who?" Niall asks, coming out of the trailer, door slamming behind him. He has a bowl of popcorn in one hand and a box of cookies in the other. 

"Your mom," Louis says, immediately. "She's a beautiful woman, Niall."

"I know she is," Niall says. "Just as well as I know that you're lying. You're talking about Taylor, aren't you?"

"...Maybe," Louis allows. 

"Is this about how you accused both her and Harry both as having a thing for each other yesterday?" Niall asks, sitting down across the picnic table from Louis and Eleanor.

"I thought you were here to support me," Louis says. "Instead of make fun of me."

"I'm here to get to the bottom of your emotional state," Niall says, frank. "So that you can support your own damn self."

"Amen," Eleanor adds.

"Taylor will be here soon," Niall adds. "Are you sure you wanted to invite her, though? If she's confusing enough to you that you think _Harry Styles_ would want her."

Louis considers it for a second, but he comes up with the same list of reasons why she'd be a good person to talk to as he's been doing all day: he hasn't seen Harry laugh like that in years, apart from when he's with Taylor. She seems to understand Louis's jealousy more than he'd expect from any kind of newcomer, too, so maybe she has some kind of unique insight into the situation. Plus, she'd laughed when Louis had called earlier to apologize and said 'ain't no thang, Tomlinson,' and he probably needs that kind of levity from someone who doesn't know him as well to work through all the muck in his head. 

"I'm sure," he says, finally. "I expect she'll be useful for this conversation."

The next car that pulls into the drive isn't Taylor's truck, however. It's a beat-up hunk of rust that Louis would recognize anywhere.

"Liam!" he shouts, as the drivers-side door clunks open. 

Liam kicks the door shut behind him and jogs over. "Good lord, but it's nice to see y'all three," he says, lowering another case of beer cans onto the picnic table and sitting down next to them.

"Too much one-on-one time with the sexy librarian?" Louis asks, waggling his eyebrows at Liam.

Liam kicks at him. "Too much time surrounded by water instead of friends," he corrects, and cracks open a beer. "What do you say, El, Niall?"

"Hey, Liam," Eleanor says. "I take it you haven't met this allegedly mysterious woman absolving Harry of his homosexuality yet?"

"No," Liam says. "I figured I'd have to come by and see it to believe it."

Louis groans, crossing his arms on the picnic table surface and slouching over till he can rest his forehead on them. "Does everyone know what I said to them?"

"Uh, yeah," Niall says. "You confronted Harry in public in front of half of McCreary County's biggest gossips."

"Maybe avoid major grocery stores," Liam says. "Andy at the Shell station in Pine Knot was asking me if it was true that Louis was upset because Harry wasn't gay anymore on my way up here."

"I hate this fucking place," Louis mumbles to his arms.

"You really, really don't," Liam says, and pats Louis roughly on the back.

The sound of Taylor's truck pulling into Louis's yard means that he doesn't have to admit that Liam is, regrettably, correct. 

"Hey," Eleanor says, poking Louis in the leg. "Isn't that your truck?"

"Essentially," Louis says, dragging his head up and waving at Taylor as she climbs out and locks the door behind her. She's wearing another tight little skirt today, this time with little sneakers instead of those ubiquitous work waders. She has a short-sleeved button-down with the shirttails knotted up under her breasts on over the tank top she'd been wearing for work that day. Her lips are as red as ever, glistening in the early evening sunlight. "Less beat up, though."

"Is that why you think he's into her?" Eleanor asks. "Because of the truck?"

Eleanor, of everyone there, knows best about what kind of things have happened in Louis's truckbed. She was there for some of it - both in the beginning, for the sex right after Louis got his learner's permit when the truck was still Mark's, lent out for Louis to practice in, and at the end, three summers ago when Louis tried to get a cover for it because he couldn't stand looking at it and seeing all those memories he made with Harry across the years.

"No," Louis says. "That'd be stupid."

"Y'know, a person could argue that thinking Harry isn't gay is stupid," Liam chimes in. "Not me, of course. But someone."

"I hate each and every one of you just as much as I hate McCreary County," Louis grouses.

"Aww, I love you too, man," Niall says, laughing when Louis flips him off.

"Oooh, are we declaring love?" Taylor asks, as she walks up. Her tone is aggressively peppy, and there's a dangerous light in her eyes. "I'd love to join in on that. You know, given that I spent all day declaring mine for Harry Styles."

"I deserve this," Louis says. "I do. I really do."

"You really do," Taylor agrees, grinning as she leans in and gives him a hug. "It's okay though."

By now, Louis is used to the way that his heart thuds in his chest and his skin feels stripped raw, overly sensitive to the mosquito landing on his wrist and the weave of her shirt against his chest and arms and the warm breeze moving across the field and playing with his hair. By now, he doesn't jump at the touch. 

"Thanks for coming," he says, grudgingly. "All of you."

"Ah, yes," Taylor says, disengaging and looking around the table. "You must be Liam," she says, holding her hand out for a shake before glancing next to Louis. "Hey, Eleanor. How's snake hunting been going for you?"

"Taylor Swift," Eleanor says, biting her lip and raising her eyebrows at Taylor's touch. Slightly unsteadily, she says, "I've heard a lot of new and wild stories about you today."

"All terrible, I presume?" Taylor asks.

"Only because Louis doesn't know an angel when he sees one," Niall assures her. "Hey, Taylor."

"Hey, Niall," Taylor says, taking a beer and sitting down facing Louis directly, pulling one leg up underneath her on the bench. She gives him a piercing look. "So. I don't think that you were jealous of Harry yesterday."

"Cutting right to the chase, are we?" Louis says, and sighs. "I told you." He looks around the table and shrugs. "All of you. I don't know what came over me."

"I mean," Niall says, giving Louis a long, searching look. "It was the day after he showed up on your front porch. That's gotta be weird."

"I guess," says Louis. He doesn't want that to be true, though. He doesn't want to be right about letting down his defenses around Harry weakening him somehow. "Maybe I just forgot how to process seeing him if I'm not yelling at him, maybe."

"I would think it's obvious," Taylor says, leaning forward and frowning. "Like, aren't you still in love with him?"

Everyone at the table falls completely silent, eyes trained on Louis as he stares at Taylor in shock. "What?" he asks. His throat feels very dry, abruptly, so he clears it a few times. When that doesn't help it feel any better, he opens a new beer and drinks half of it down. " _What_?"

Eleanor is the first one to move. She takes one of Louis's hands in both of hers and holds on tight. It's too hot out, and her palm is sticky from the heat, damp and a little too warm, but her fingers are soft as they stroke over his. "She's saying what we're all thinking," she says, gently. "Just… more quickly than we was going to get around to it." She sighs a little and squeezes Louis's hand. "I know you don't want to be and that you've spent so much time trying to move past him, but - Lou, honey, don't you remember? This is how you acted when you first started falling for him, too."

"Damn near ripped my head off for so much as talking to him," Niall points out, tentatively. 

"Yeah, because you were _flirting_ with him," Louis grumbles.

"I wasn't," Niall says, and he looks up and gives Taylor a very odd, penetrating sort of look - half-frown, half-recognition. Louis knows Niall well enough to place exactly what kinds of thoughts are crossing his mind - a sort of dawning awareness and appreciation - but he can't parse out why Niall is having those thoughts at this moment. Slowly, Niall adds, "I was just making him laugh."

"Jeez," Louis says, and scrubs a hand through his hair. His head is spinning, and it's not from the beer. "Y'all are really going for the wildest possible reason here, ain't you?"

"I mean," Liam says. "Louis, every single one of us here knows exactly how hard you've worked to get over Harry leaving, except maybe Taylor - sorry, Taylor, but it's true," he adds, and she inclines her head majestically, magnanimously. "And every single one of us here, including Taylor, knows how rough it is for you now that he's come back. Would it be this rough if you didn't care about him anymore?"

They're right, is the thing. They're all way too fucking right. Their points are not bad ones. But the thing is - the thing is - well. "What if I don't want to be?" Louis asks, in a tiny voice. "I've tried, haven't I? I've - well. I haven't prayed, but God wouldn't fucking do anything about it if I did, anyway."

"Hey," Eleanor says, sharply, but Louis can't even bring himself to apologize.

"God creates," Taylor says, quietly. "He doesn't destroy."

"You decided that," Louis says, tonelessly. "I didn't necessarily agree."

"He certainly wouldn't destroy something as beautiful as love," Taylor continues. She puts her hand on Louis's shoulder. He can't contain his full-body shiver at the feeling. "I know it."

"What's so beautiful about _this_?" Louis demands, twisting to face her and dislodging her hand in the process. "I'm clearly miserable. I'm yelling at people I have no business yelling at about him. I can't stand to look at him without feeling like I'm being punched in the gut, constantly, by a dude with brass-fucking-knuckles."

Taylor purses her lips. They look redder than ever in the orange light of the sun, which is just starting to dip below the treeline. "You wouldn't feel this way if there wasn't a point to it."

"I don't want your philosophizing, Taylor," Louis says. He can't fucking stop fidgeting, pulling loose threads from the hem of his shirt, scratching at the wood of the picnic table, fiddling with the pull tab on his can of beer. "I don't _want_ to be in love with _him_ still. Anymore. At all. Whatever. So I'm not."

Taylor exhales hard through her nose. "God would want -"

"Louis," Eleanor interrupts. "You're doing so much better than you were when he left before. You realize that, right? This sucks a lot, I _know_ , but you're in so much of a better place than three years ago. You're fighting. You're not giving up on everything. That is a blessing, and _that_ is what tells me you're going to be okay. Okay? One way or another. God will provide for you - He _is_ providing for you - and you're going to make it."

Taylor shoots Eleanor a very impressed sort of look, but Louis turns away from them, and pulls his battered pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his shorts. 

He lights it, and takes a few deep, reassuring drags before he turns to Niall and Liam. "What do y'all think, then?"

"I think you have a decision to make," Liam says, carefully. "If you're still in love with him, you're gonna have to decide what to do about it."

"Like, you can do nothing," Niall adds. "Or you can talk to him again. You don't have to decide right now."

When Taylor speaks again, she's reined some of her enthusiasm in. "That's right," she says. "You can set the pace."

Louis nods. "I don't want to think about whether or not I might still love that guy," he says, after a few more stabilizing drags. "I just want to play the fucking banjo and drink this fucking beer and not think about him at all for a little while."

"We can do that," Niall says, smiling. "Taylor? Can you play?"

"Fiddle and guitar," she says. "If you have instruments."

"I, for one, can only dance," Eleanor announces. "So you better give me a good beat."

"Right," Liam says, casting a look around the table, eyes lingering on Louis. "El, can you help me bring my stuff from my car? And Taylor, you can go with Niall go get his and Louis's instruments." 

He gives Louis a little wink when they all stand up, and tilts his head to the side. "Lou, you can hold down the fort here at the table, right?"

"Right," Louis says, gratefully, and once they all walk away, he takes advantage of that little bit of time to himself by closing his eyes and catching his breath.

"It'll be okay," he whispers to himself. "I can figure this all out later. I don't have to work through it right now. I don't have to decide if I still, um." He takes in a shaky breath and lets it out. " _Love_ Harry still right now. And I don't have to do a single thing about it if I do."

If he doesn't believe himself when he says it, well. There's no one around to call him on his lie.

+++

Louis is just about to check when the train's supposed to come in when his phone rings.

"Dude," Niall says. "How much longer till you get off?"

"About five hours," Louis says. The sun is out and the humidity is way, way up, so it's unlikely that many people are going to show up at Blue Heron today, even though the roads are officially clear. But a job's a job and money is money and, if Louis is honest, it's nice that he has a ready excuse to not face Harry, or working through what precisely his feelings about Harry are, for another day. "Why?"

"Um, shit is going down out here," says Niall. "Hold on." 

There's a beep and then Louis is on speaker, able to make out a huge commotion in the background. "It's going to cost me _what_?" Old Man Grimshaw's gravelyn voice scales up at the end of the question, incredulous. "I ain't got that kind of money!"

"Sir, we understand, but there's no - sir? Sir!"

"He just threw down his cane," Niall whispers. "Not, like, at the guy, but it hit his foot."

"Wait, what?" Louis asks. "What guy? What's going on?"

"Okay, so," says Niall. "This dude in a suit has been at the flood site all day, going from door to door. We're still at Grimshaw's house mopping up mud, right, and filling up the dumpster with the last of the drywall, so he just got here. Bad news always comes in business suits."

"I don't think that's the saying," Louis says, and then yelps as Mary reaches over and flicks him on the arm. "What?!"

"You shouldn't be taking personal calls on company hours," she says, snidely.

"No one's here, Mary," Louis says. "And this is an important call."

"I'm sure it isn't," she says, settling back and crossing her arms. "At least take a proper break if you're going to be yammering on to all your little queer friends."

Louis has long since stopped bristling at everything Mary says. He's had five years to get used to her quirks. "You know, Mary, you've become a real pain in the ass ever since you quit smoking," he says, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet up on the counter.

She huffs, the gust of her breath blowing her bangs up in the air. They settle down in disarray. "You should be nice to your elders," she says.

"You graduated high school two years before me," he says, rolling his eyes. "You're not an elder."

"I assure you -" Mary starts, huffing out another dismissive little snort, but Louis ignores her.

"Sorry, Ni," he says. "You know how Mary can be. You were saying?"

"Give her my love," Niall says. He's not laughing into the phone when he says it, though, which is - odd, for Niall, particularly when he's making a joke.

Louis switches his phone over to his other ear and hunches around it, drawing further away from Mary in the process. "What's going on, Nialler?" he asks, quietly.

"Did you know," Niall says, taking the phone off speaker so that his voice echos, singular and loud, in Louis's ear. "That the houses here don't got flood insurance?"

Louis's stomach drops out - he feels like it's sunk, rapidly, into the abandoned mine below his feet. "Um, what?"

"Yeah," Niall says. "It wasn't near an open creek. There wasn't a risk. We - none of us - have coverage for this."

No, that - that can't be. There isn't a single person on that bit of land, much less in this whole entire _county_ , that can handle paying for that level of flood damage. "Surely there's a way -"

Niall cuts him off. "It doesn't look likely," he says. "There's the donations, but, Lou, they're not enough to get even a quarter of these people even marginally back on their feet. Money's dried up with the water."

"Jesus Christ," Louis breathes, before he can catch himself. Fuck. There he goes, summoning that dick God's monster son, or whatever. With his luck communing with deities in any way, a meteor will strike McCreary County off the map and send everyone in it off to hell. 

Well. At least then no one would have to worry about flood insurance. 

"Is - your mom's place. Will that need repairs?"

"Well, the barn is pretty much ruined," Niall says. "But she didn't keep nothing in there anymore, so it'll probably be okay. When I went in to check, the basement got an inch, maybe, but it wasn't finished and there wasn't really any furniture down there. So. She'll be okay. We'll be okay." The relief in his voice is palpable. So is the guilt.

"It's not on you that your place didn't get as much trouble as others," Louis says, fiercely. 

"Ugh," Niall says. "I know. I do. I know that. It's just…"

"I get it," Louis says, when it becomes apparent that Niall isn't going to finish the thought. After all, he still blames himself for the entire fucking flood, a little. He sighs and checks his watch. "Look, as soon as I get out of here I'm coming straight to you. We'll get Waffle House and make a plan."

"You're a true friend," Niall says. The playful edge to his voice is totally gone.

Louis's heart breaks a little. "Just repaying you for all the giving you've done for me in the past few weeks," he says. 

"Yeah, yeah," says Niall. "I gotta go. Things are getting wild over here."

Louis's broke heart clunks right on down and joins his stomach in the abandoned mine below. "Good luck," he says.

All in a rush, Niall blurts, "Wait. Before I go."

"What's that?" Louis asks, finger hovering over the call end button.

"Um," says Niall. "Harry's been asking about you. Whether you're okay. He said he promised not to talk to you but he wanted to check in?"

Louis freezes. Slowly, he asks, "Did he ask you to check in with me?"

"No, actually, he asked me not to mention it to you at all," Niall says. "But um. I thought you might like to know. He's not, like, mad about the Taylor thing or whatever." A commotion on Niall's end starts building up, shouts that Louis can't quite make out, and before Louis has time to process what Niall's said - much less respond to it - Niall is saying, "Okay, I really do have to go. Um. Gotta talk Old Man Grimshaw off of getting his shotgun and going after business suit guy, or whatever."

"Yikes," Louis says. "Yeah, okay. Bye."

It takes him a moment to put down the phone after Niall hangs up.

"You know," says Mary, putting down her magazine. She's a fucking hypocrite, is what she is. "I could have you fired for that."

"You're a heartless bitch, Mary," Louis spits back.

"What was that?" she asks, crossing her arms and kicking at his feet until he knocks them off of the counter.

"Nothing," he says. He leans over and plugs his phone into the charger permanently stuck in the outlet behind the desk. "Thanks for always lookin' out that I'm doing my job."

"Damn straight," she says. 

Louis sighs, and slaps at a mosquito. Somehow, they've even gotten inside here. All that stagnant water from the flood didn't hit Blue Heron, but with so many people off cleaning that up instead of maintaining the buildings, enough pools built up from all the rain that the entire area is one giant mosquito breeding ground. It's worse, even, than the flood zone. At least there, people have been more or less churning up all the puddles where the pests would breed.

Niall'd said that bad news always came in a business suit, which may or may not be true. But it is true that bad things - disasters - always come in threes. Harry. The flood. The way it's probably going to lead to accelerated and deeper poverty for the county, and for some of the county's needier residents. The legions of mosquitoes. 

That's four things, though. But maybe the flood itself wasn't the disaster. Maybe the disaster is just the wreckage the flood brought upon the community. Maybe the disaster is that the flood happened to people already so poor that most probably won't be able to recover from it. Maybe the disaster is the miasma the flood leaves behind once the waters dry up: a buttload of mosquitoes; a row of empty, gutted houses that people can't afford to leave; and the ghost of the shambles of Louis's fraught relationship with the guy he'd once believed to be the love of his life, rising up like a swarm of locusts, picking apart and consuming everything Louis has managed to pull together in the years since the relationship ended, making a bad situation worse.

 _Harry didn't bring the flood_ , he tells himself, sternly, and then: _I didn't cause the flood to keep Harry away. He can't be one of the disasters_.

If he tries really, really hard, he might even start to believe it.

+++

Harry's at the site, as per, the next time Louis is off work, laying sod down where the mud is starting to dry and the grass has been washed clean away.

Louis stares at the back of Harry's head, hair pulled into a mess of a bun, wisps already falling free. His forearms are streaked with dirt, furrows of sweat digging their way through to the skin, and his shirt is clinging, damp, to his back. 

Louis doesn't want to find that attractive. There is no world in which that should be attractive. There is no world in which Louis should _be_ attracted to Harry anymore.

Good Lord, but he's got to get a grip on himself.

Sighing, Louis grabs a bottle of water and walks up to where Harry is leaning over into the wagon to grab another square of sod. "That was pretty embarrassing of me, wasn't it," he says, forcing himself to sound as nonchalant as humanly possible. 

Harry gives an odd little yelp and drops the sod on his foot, whirling around to face Louis. "I'm - what?"

Louis wants so, so desperately to laugh at the shock on Harry's face and the dirt and grass draping over his shoe, but he manages to rein it in. Face impassive, he says. "Okay, _that_ just there was pretty embarrassing of you."

"Are you talking about, um." Harry scratches a hand through his hair, leaving a gob of mud hanging just above his right ear.

"Accusing you of having a thing for Taylor Swift, yes, yes, we all know it happened, must we go on about it?"

"You're the one that brought it up," Harry says, slowly.

As if Louis could have possibly forgotten. "I just wanted to say," he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't know what done came over me."

"Right," says Harry. He gives Louis a hard, shrewd look, then nods, forehead smoothing out. "Apology accepted."

Louis nods, too, relieved that he doesn't actually have to say the word 'sorry.' It makes sense that Harry would remember that about him - it was always one of the bones of contention in their relationship - but before, Harry would have drawn things out until Louis actually said the words. 

The weird thing is, he doesn't feel that weird right now? He's talking to Harry, and he's not about to fly off the handle. The ever-present hurt and associated anger is thrumming under his skin, but it feels manageable, not debilitating. His eyes keep getting caught on the hole near the bottom of Harry's shirt, and the little flash of skin behind it. 

Honestly, _fuck_ his friends for talking about how he's so clearly still in love with Harry. They're putting weird ideas into his head, that's what they're doing.

He's just about to go find something else to do, anywhere else but next to Harry, try and clear his mind, when Harry clears his throat and straightens up. "Since I have you here," he says. "Um, I wasn't going to, like, come up to you and ask, since I'm not… doing that…"

"Is there a point here?" Louis asks. His tongue feels thick in his mouth. Harry's always struggled to get to the point. He used to find that charming.

He can't afford to find that charming ever again.

"Right, yeah," Harry says. He wipes his hands off on his pants, nervously. "Do you mind if I go to our old church again this Sunday? I, like, don't want to upset you. But I do want to go to that church."

Louis leans against the side of the wagon. He's got to be a bigger person now than he's been since Harry got back. The realization that he's going to make an effort leaves him reeling: if Harry's going to be here for the forseeable future, it won't do Louis any good to shroud himself in anger every time he sees the guy. He'll just get more exhausted that way, and faster.

"Let's see," Louis says, crossing his arms. "I know that the last time we talked about this, it ended in a shouting match. And the time before that and the one before that, too, if we're getting technical here."

"You can just tell me no if it's a no," says Harry. "I'll figure something out."

"Explain it to me like I'm five," says Louis. He's never really bought into deep breaths stabilizing you, but recent experience has led him to acknowledge that they're useful, so he preemptively inhales slow, steady, and lets the breath out the same way. "Do you believe in God now?"

Harry looks down at the ground, then brings his gaze up and looks Louis straight in the eye. "I do not," he says. "That hasn't changed."

"Then why would you want to expose yourself to the shit He allows people to do in His name?" Louis asks, bitterly. "Why would you want to expose yourself to the church that nigh on cast us out for being together?"

"You go there," Harry says. "It can't all be that bad."

"No, it is," says Louis. "And you're not even getting anything out of it if you don't believe in The Divine Dickhead."

Harry frowns, kicking his square of sod more or less into place and coming to lean against the wagon, next to Louis. "I thought you loved God."

"Yeah, well, turns out He's an asshole," Louis says. "No matter what Taylor insists."

"Is there something going on between you and her?" Harry asks, and when Louis glares at him, he holds his hands up. "I don't mean that to mock you. You just… seemed kinda into her when you yelled at me the other day."

Louis pats his pockets for his cigarettes. There's only one left in his pack - he'll have to pick more up on his way home. Lighting it, he directs the smoke away from Harry when he exhales. By the time he sticks his lighter back in his pocket, he's decided to tell the truth. "No," he says. "Anyway. What do you get out of church?"

"I love the community," Harry says. "I love the good that people do in God's name. I believe in the power of His name, even if I don't believe in Him."

"Yeah, but that church didn't do much good for you," Louis points out. "Harry, we were pariahs."

"Yeah, but you still go to it," Harry says. He's not quite pouting, but the set of his jaw is fully obstinate. 

This conversation is coming back around to every other time they've had it, and while Louis generally does love the familiar cadence of words shared dozens of times before, he doesn't want to fall in that rut with this conversation with Harry again. "I made my peace," Louis says. He sighs, and grits his teeth, and tells the truth: "And I don't plan to talk to you about the details of how I did that, even if you want me to, because I'm not ready to be that honest with you, okay?"

"Okay," Harry says, nodding. "I can accept that. But is it so hard for you to believe that I want to go there? Louis, I was a missionary for _our church_ for three years. Not mama's new one. That one. And if you do a church's work for long enough, you start to really appreciate it all over again." He half-shrugs, the corner of his mouth curling up fondly. "The kind of good it can do."

"Overlooking the fact that you went and spread the word of a God you don't even believe in," Louis says, "You want to go to my church because you feel good about it again."

"I do," Harry says. Uncertainly, he adds, "Is that okay?"

Louis looks out across the field, at all the people laboring together to finish patching up the land of folks who have lived in Stearns for decades, and smokes. The sun is glaring off of the spades and hammers. Mrs MacIntosh is pouring sweet tea from a canteen into little plastic cups. "We still have very different reasons for going," Louis says on an exhale, after a long few minutes. "That's not going to change anytime soon."

"I wouldn't expect it to," Harry says. There's a hint of a smile around his mouth when Louis looks over at him, but it doesn't look malicious or smug. Instead, it looks a lot like - relief? Something inside Louis's stomach twists, warm and wistful. 

"Don't sit next to me," he says, to distract himself from whatever-it-is. "Sit behind me. If I see you, I won't - I just need to be able to pay attention to the sermons, okay?"

"You've never once liked the sermons," Harry points out.

"Doesn't mean I can't make use of them," Louis says. He takes a final drag off his cigarette, and then drops it to the ground, grinding it out. He pushes himself off and away from the wagon. "See you when I see you, Styles."

"Good talk, Tomlinson," Harry says.

As Louis walks away, it's like something falls into place. That conversation certainly wasn't closure, but it was - comforting, in a way Louis didn't think he needed. Maybe coexistence just got a little bit easier.

+++

"It's truly ungodly," Taylor says, writing so furiously in her little notebook that her pencil snaps in two. She scowls and flings both pieces across the room and directly into the trash can.

"Nice one," Louis says, eyeing the trajectory and swirling a spoon through his coffee. He's dunked about four half and halfs in it. That might just be enough. Waffle House is consistently great at everything except for coffee, so he makes do. "What's ungodly?"

Taylor rolls her eyes at him, scrounging around in her purse for another writing implement. "This county is so poor," she says, triumphantly holding up a pen and flicking the cap off. 

"Um, didn't Jesus say to love the poor?" 

"Jesus and Isaiah both," Taylor agrees. She quotes: "'Woe to those who enact unjust decrees and draft oppressive legislation to deprive the impoverished of justice and rob my people’s poor of their rights.'"

"What version is that from?" Louis asks, frowning. It sounds like Isaiah 10, but no Isaiah 10 that he's ever read. When Taylor opens her red, wet mouth to answer he shakes his head and puts up a hand. "Never mind. That's beside the point. Why is McCreary County being poor something ungodly?"

"I mean, it shouldn't be," she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder with a jerk of her head. "Poor, that is. And it's just plain wrong for some high-minded insurance company to refuse to fully compensate the people here for their loss because they never were offered much-needed flood insurance in the first place! It is honest-to-God a sin, Louis."

Louis blinks, long and slow, so he doesn't have to look at the way her eyes sparkle with excitement. No eyes have any business sparkling in the flourescent lights of Waffle House. Unless those eyes are feasting upon a double order of smothered, covered, and chunked hash browns, maybe even also with both the chili and the gravy. Those hash browns are proof that God still gives a shit about _something_ out there. "So what is it that you plan to do about it, exactly?"

"My dad is kind of a judge," Taylor says, doodling _genesis 7:11_ in a loopy script on the corner of her legal pad. "I think I mentioned that before? Anyway, he's said lots of things about dealing with this kind of situation before."

"This… what kind of situation?"

"Oh, you know," Taylor says, flapping her hand. "Floods and destruction and rebuilding and how much help people are entitled to, regardless of whatever, you know." She pauses, and her nostrils flare slightly on her next words. " _Unjust decrees_ are in effect."

"Oh, shit," Louis breathes. "You're from Nashville, right? Are you talking about them floods back in 2010?"

Taylor nods. "He helped - we _all_ helped - with the relief for that," she says. "And with Katrina, and with all those floods all over the place in 2013 and 2009." She takes a sip of her orange juice - through a straw, of course, so as not to disturb her lipstick - and adds, "And a _lot_ of others, all the way back. Daddy's real involved in that kind of stuff, and he likes us to pitch in, too."

"I didn't know you had siblings," Louis says. He takes a sip of his coffee. It's almost too cool to taste good, now, but he'll drink it anyway.

"I have a brother," she says, smiling a little. "But the whole family is really, really big."

"I love big families," Louis says, sinking back in his seat and picking up his spoon to stir his coffee some more. "I used to want one of my own someday."

"Oh, Louis," Taylor says, reaching over and resting her hand on the back of Louis's free wrist. His whole body shudders at the touch, but he gets enough of a hold on himself that it doesn't show outwardly. "You can still have that."

Louis purses his lips and changes the subject. "I didn't know judges got that involved in natural disasters."

"Not all judges do," Taylor says. She squeezes Louis's hand and then lets go. "Dad just takes a special interest in them." She lifts an eyebrow at Louis. "Just like I've taken a special interest in helping out in this county."

"It sure needs it," Louis agrees. 

Taylor smiles. It's more of a smirk, actually, her red red lips curving up wickedly. "I could help _you_ out."

Louis drops his spoon. It clatters outside of the mug, spattering milky coffee everywhere. "I don't want sexual favors, Taylor," he says, slowly.

Taylor throws back her head and laughs, helplessly, for long enough that Gracie the waitress comes by with water to help calm her down. "I wasn't propositioning you, Louis," she says, finally, wiping tears of mirth away from her eyes. "You're way too hung up on Harry for that. I just mean that I could tell you all about how you deserve to allow yourself to be happy."

"I'm plenty happy," Louis says, bristling. 

She gives him a piercing look. "Sorry if I'm crossing some kind of boundary, but you don't strike me as such, really. You're way too closed off."

"If this is about Harry," Louis starts.

He stops talking when Taylor snaps her fingers. "That's _it_ ," she exclaims.

And then she literally _bounces in her seat_.

"What," Louis says, dumbfounded. He clears his throat. "That is, what's it?"

"He's got you all closed off," Taylor says, brightly. Her tone is this aggravating, put-upon wise voice that inserts itself right under Louis's skin. He twitches a little, shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "You should let him in more."

"I will not fucking do that," Louis says. He pushes his coffee to the side; he's no longer interested in it. "Did Harry put you up to this?"

Taylor laughs a little, unselfconsciously. "Actually, no," she says. "It's my own _amazing_ idea."

"It's not," Louis says. "Considering I'm never going to forgive him. I can coexist. I don't need to try for more."

"Louis, sweetie, you don't have to _forgive_ him yet," Taylor says. "Just… open your heart to the possibility. I swear, the less you close yourself off to opportunities - even ones you don't think you'll ever want to pursue - the better you'll feel."

"Says who?" Louis asks, crossing his arms. So what if he's been feeling a little better ever since he and Harry had a mostly-civil conversation? He still can't bring himself to trust him, and too much exposure to that will _definitely_ make him feel worse, not better. Right?

"Says me," says Taylor. She waggles her eyebrows at him playfully. "I'm very wise, you know. I've been around for a while. Been around the block. Seen a few things. I know what I'm talking about."

"No, Taylor," says Louis. "Thanks, but it's just not in the cards."

Taylor nods. Her face grows more serious, and with it, it feels like tension starts to crackle through the air. "If your compunction here is that God wouldn't approve," she says, leaning across the table a little, voice lowered, "I feel like I have it on pretty good authority that He would support you."

"What," Louis says. "Because we'd be _creating_ a relationship and He's all about creation? I hate to break it to you, Taylor, but that relationship is already destroyed. So. It's outside of God's jurisdiction now."

"I just mean," Taylor says, and she shakes her head, blonde hair whipping across her face. "Louis, chill out. All I mean is that you clearly know your Bible. You know your interpretations. And I think those are closer to what God would actually say than other people may lead you to believe."

"I'm secure in my own faith, Taylor," Louis snaps. There's a whining in his ears, now, like the tension pulsating between them is about to hit a breaking point. He takes a deep breath and lets it out, slowly. "Sorry. But I'm fairly certain God doesn't give two shits about me, one way or another, no matter who I'm with. I'm not concerned about His opinion with regard to how I feel about Harry, outside of the way that Him ignoring the few prayers I _have_ made has led to this whole entire fucking mess."

Taylor twists her mouth up to one side, like she's tasted something unpleasant. "I'll drop it," she says. "It wasn't my place to pry."

Louis forces himself to smile. "I may have only known you for a couple of weeks, Taylor Swift," he says. "And I may not know your middle name for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was 'Pry.'"

"Close enough," she says, rolling her eyes. Just like that, the tension vanishes. "Sorry anyway, though."

She knocks her knee against his under the table to punctuate her apology. For the first time since Louis met her, the surge of static electricity through his entire being doesn't feel off-putting. 

In fact, he almost kind of likes it.

He presses his leg firmly against hers, acknowledging her apology, and since it doesn't feel bad, in this moment, since it suddenly doesn't feel like the very hair follicles on every inch of skin aren't straining to leap off his body and cling onto hers, Louis doesn't move away.

+++

Louis doesn't know how literally almost everyone he knows ends up at the abandoned mines after church the next week, but there they all are. There's not much to do at the flood site, he supposes - now it's all lobbying for money to rebuild.

There have been some donations - the Red Cross takes up a collection; Old Man Grimshaw's grandson, who works at WKRP up in Cincinnati, brings the situation up in a couple of his shows; a preacher up Carter County way talks his congregation into giving a little to help get ahead of all the evil in the world or some such; and some folks from Lexington and Louisville organize drives - but overall, it seems as if the people who care about places like McCreary County are the people too hard up to give.

It's nice, maybe, taking the afternoon off from worries. Pastor Parrish's sermon hadn't been _that_ horrifying, and Harry had sat far behind Louis for the second week in a row, and they got along just fine in the two days Louis had off work, not talking but not fighting, either. 

And yet Harry's here now, because Taylor had snagged him on their way out of the church and Louis hadn't had the heart to say no when he saw how Niall was trying to suppress his excitement. He's walking ahead with Liam, picking his way over the rocks by the river as they all head, en masse, to the Devil's Jump rapids around the bend from Blue Heron. 

Louis lingers back with Taylor and Niall. He can't stop the tiny part of him that's just waiting for Harry to stumble, but it's easy enough to tell himself that he's just got an eye out so he can shout a warning - not for the excuse to catch Harry, like he might've done back in the day. 

"Why on earth did we decide to come out here today?" Niall asks, dragging his arm across his forehead. It doesn't succeed in wiping away his sweat, though - just lets the sweat on his arm mingle with the sweat on his head. "Eleanor and Sophia and Perrie all had the right idea of it, saying no."

"El and Soph and Perrie said no so they could go snake hunting up past Whitley City," Louis says. "Which, I might add, is copperhead country. They do _not_ have the right fucking idea about anything."

Niall inclines his head. "Fair point," he says. He's picked up a giant stick somewhere - 'all the better for walking with, my dears - and now he uses it to whack some plants out of the way as they get set to scramble past some bushes. "We had the right idea of it when we initially planned to go for Cracker Barrel today."

"Can't argue with that," Louis says.

"Oh, shut up," Liam calls, from up ahead. "It's nice to be in the _sun_ again."

"That's right," Harry agrees. He spreads his arms out and twirls on top of the boulder he's climbing over. Miraculously, he doesn't fall and crack his head open. "Look how _outside_ we all are!"

Louis snorts. "We've been outside for days," he shouts back. "We could've had biscuits by now! And gravy!"

"We have sandwiches," Taylor points out. "And Hi-C, because _someone_ insisted."

"It is hotter than a bitch wolf in heat outside, Taylor Swift," Niall says. "Of course I was going to insist on Hi-C."

"Anyway," Liam adds, as they come over a final hill. "We're here."

"Thank fuck," Louis breathes. He pulls his tank top over his head and kicks off his shoes. "Last one in's a rotten egg!"

With that, he launches himself into the river. It's not quite deep enough here for a cannonball, but it's certainly adequate for a good leap and swim toward the shallows. 

The water is nice, and cool, and if it means he has to endure Harry also taking his top off and getting all wet, so be it. He won't be affected by it. He doesn't have to touch. He's spent three years getting over Harry; he's not going to relapse now. 

When they were all kids, they'd strung a rope up across this part of the shallows. But not even Louis and Liam, the perennial residents of McCreary County, have been here in years. The path they'd worn to get to the rapids isn't totally gone, because other people occasionally stumble across it, but the rope is frayed beyond any sort of use. And it's weird, it's really fucking weird, to be here with Taylor Swift - whose red lipstick doesn't even seem to begin to smudge in the water - instead of Zayn, but. It's almost kind of nice, to have Harry back here. 

Louis almost kind of wishes they'd had the foresight to bring their instruments out here. But then again, the banjo would likely get soaking wet and completely warped. It's enough to jump and shout and splash and laugh and drape themselves over the sun-baked boulders at the side of the river to dry and eat sandwiches and shoot the shit.

Louis would even hazard to call it a grand success of a day. Harry laughs at one of his jokes, sun gilding his throat as he tosses his head back with the force of it, but he doesn't engage with Louis directly. It's enough to make a guy think he really, truly can successfully coexist with the worst sort of traitor of an ex for years to come, even with his own traitorous body trying to insist that he misses the feeling of Harry's rough hands running all over his skin.

So maybe it's that false sense of security that lulls Louis into drifting after Taylor when she waggles her phone at everyone and disappears into the woods to make a call.

Maybe it's that false sense of security that leads to Louis overhearing Taylor say, "Yeah, no. This county is _rife_ with sin, Father. It's truly repugnant. I feel like I have _got_ to do something about it."

The false sense of security goes away pretty fast after that.

He freezes, pressing himself against the back of a tree just out of her line of vision. Holding his breath, he listens, and waits for her to speak again. "Well, he's complicated!" she says, eventually, voice coming out like a bit of a whine. "No, no, I can handle it, but I might as well clean stuff up around here while I'm at it." 

She pauses again, and Louis is just lecturing to himself, sternly, that he needs to either make his presence known or go away, when she says: "Yeah, he believes. Still. But he's furious about it, and he won't listen to a single thing I tell him about you." She laughs a little, then adds: "No, I can definitely handle that. I've done it before, Father, you know that. I'll just - what? The other one?" She pauses for a second. "No, that one doesn't believe yet, but we'll get there. It's trickier to open a mind than a heart, but you know I'm well versed in doing it. They both like me, I think, so it shouldn't be that hard."

It sounds like - but she can't be talking about him. Can she? Why would she even be saying stuff like this about him, and to her _dad_ of all people? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make a single iota of sense, but he still feels, deep in his gut, like he's got the right idea of it.

He shakes his head hard to try and dislodge the thought, but instead of shaking it free, something else occurs to him: the so-called other one might be Harry.

"No, you don't have to worry about any dalliances!" she's insisting, when he tunes back in, trying to get some shred of evidence that he's going crazy. "Not this time. Except - Eleanor Calder. I think she could be enlisted. You know, into our ranks. She says she's going down to Nashville soon, so we could - yeah. Yep. Mhmm. Okay. I'll follow up on him. But I just think that it would be better if - what?"

There's another long, long pause, during which Louis manages to convince himself that he's being totally irrational and making no sense whatsoever. 

He's just about to tiptoe away, when Taylor says, voice high-pitched and tone wheedling, "Not even _one_ miracle? Not even an itsy-bitsy teenie-weenie one? _Ugh_ ," she groans. "Why not, Father?" 

In the ensuing pause, Louis peeks around the trunk. Taylor's back is mostly to him, but he can tell from the set of her shoulders that she's frowning. The fingers gripping her phone are white, with tension and agitation. "Ugh. Fine. But let it be on the record that you should still consider it. Like, I mean, the flood _did_ kinda happen because I came here in the first place! And that was a true blue disaster, Father. It's only right that it get fixed before I go!" She huffs out an angry breath. "Ugh, ugh, _ugh_. Okay. Bye. Love you too."

Louis's blood runs cold. He's shivering despite the heat of the air, gooseflesh erupting over his entire body, the water still dripping from his shorts making rivulets through the hair that's standing on end all down his legs. 

What the _fuck_ was that.

It's the click of Taylor's phone locking that makes him jump. He shouldn't be here right now. He shouldn't let her know he overheard - that. _Whatever_ that was.

Before he can get away, Taylor comes around the tree.

"Oh!" she says, jumping back a little. "Hey, Louis."

It takes a minute for Louis to get his throat to work. "Hi, Taylor," he says, hoarsely.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, brightly. "Were you looking for me?"

"Yeah," Louis lies. "Just wanted to make sure you were all right. These woods can hide surprise sinkholes in these here parts."

"Well," Taylor says, smiling at him. "That's very thoughtful of you. I just had to call my dad real quick." She rolls her eyes. "He always insists that the connection is better on Sundays."

"Right," Louis says, turning to make his way back out of the woods. He still feels so cold inside. When her arm brushes against his as she falls into step beside him, he feels even colder.

They all head back to the cars not long after that. Niall leads the way, dragging Taylor and Liam into an in-depth discussion about the weird-ass names people give geological features around here.

Louis tunes them out when he hears the words "dick gap overlook," and falls into step next to Harry.

"You're awfully quiet," Harry observes, after ten minutes of walking in silence. He winces immediately after he says it. "Sorry. I know I wasn't going to, like initiate conversation or whatever."

"No, you're fine," Louis says. "I just have a lot on my mind right now, I guess."

"Well," Harry says. "If you want to talk about it, I'm here, I guess." He smiles at Louis, self-deprecatingly. "Unless it's the kind of thing that'll lead to us shouting at each other, of course. Then I'd rather you not bring it up."

"Ha, ha," Louis deadpans. He tries very hard to ignore the way Harry's face lights up with a smile.

It takes another quarter mile of walking for Louis to decide that if Taylor truly was talking about both him and Harry, then Harry has a right to know. So he sucks it up and sighs a little. He knows the Blue Heron parking lot is nearly in view again, and that when they get there, Harry will go off in his little car and the opportunity to bring it up when there's an almost-calm between them will be gone.

So he wraps his hand around Harry's bicep and pulls him off the path and into the trees. 

Annoyingly, his heart speeds up the second his skin touches Harry's, and he damn near loses his breath. Warmth starts spreading through him again, from their point of contact outward. 

"Damn it," he mutters.

"What?" Harry asks. His eyes are wide. He's staring at where Louis's fingers are leaving indents into his arm, eyes flicking up to Louis's face and then back down again. "Louis, is everything okay?"

Louis sighs and releases Harry's arm, shaking his hand out to try and get the buzzing under his skin to die down. "I just wanted to, like, provide a friendly warning," he says. "I overheard Taylor on the phone, and she said some stuff. I don't think - I mean. She probably can't be trusted, is all I'm saying."

Harry freezes, and then frowns. Crossing his arms slowly, he says, "Might want to provide that warning to yourself." His voice is calm, but it's clear he's suddenly furious.

"Why are you mad at me?" Louis demands, loudly, before he realizes that Taylor is _out there_ in these woods and if she overhears them, she might come and listen and do - something. He isn't clear on what, but he's fairly convinced now that something bad could happen. Something _else_ bad, if that flood comment wasn't just an exaggeration of some sort. Switching to a whisper, he hisses, "I am _just_ trying to do you a solid here."

"First you get weirdly jealous about my friendship with Taylor even though you're _just as close with her_ , if not _even closer_ ," Harry hisses back. "Like, don't get me wrong, the apology was nice, but that's definitely what that was. And then you warn me away from her? It doesn't make sense!"

"I am _well aware_ of that, Harry, but you're going to have to trust me on this!" he says. "Like, I think she was talking about us. To her dad. Plotting something." He sighs and slumps against a tree trunk. "I know it doesn't make any sense," he repeats. 

If anything, Harry blushes. But it could just be the sun. "Talking about us isn't a capital offense, Louis," he says. "It might even, you know, make sense. That she would."

Louis's mind flashes to the times Taylor has told him to try again with Harry, or to open his heart to love, or whatever. Abruptly, he wonders what kinds of conversations she's been having with Harry on the matter.

Wincing, he says, "More like… I don't know. Weird stuff. Opening… things." He debates mentioning what she said about the flood, but there's no way she could have caused that. God, maybe, in response to Louis's prayer, but never a girl like Taylor. 

"You're making absolutely no sense, Louis," says Harry. He pushes a hand through his damp hair. The ends splatter droplets of water onto the ground. "You could stand to be more precise about why you're suddenly against me and Taylor associating with each other again."

"That's not - that's not what I'm saying," Louis says. "I'm just saying, she gives off a weird vibe. She seems overly interested, is what I'm saying."

Harry laughs, a hollow, humorless chuckle. "Louis," he says. "Louis, Louis, Louis. You can't keep acting all hot and cold _jealous_ like this."

"I'm _not_ ," Louis insists. For once, he even means it.

"Like," Harry continues, as if Louis didn't even say a thing. "I'm really trying to respect all of your wishes here, but this is really fucking with my mind."

Louis wants to tell Harry that it's fucking with his, too - that Taylor's weird phone call has thrown him so far off kilter he doesn't know how to even start to get back on track. But he's not certain that's what Harry is talking about at all. "What do you _mean_?" he demands.

Harry bites his lip. He's quiet for a long, long time - long enough that Louis is about to give up and go back to his truck - before finally, quietly, desperately saying, "I still want to kiss you. I want to kiss you all the time. I want to think that you're jealous that Taylor might be taking up my attention, and that makes me want to kiss you even more."

Louis's stomach bottoms out. "You can't," he says, mouth dry. "You can't just _say_ things like that."

Harry looks him in the eye. His expression is one of pure, wretched anguish. "I know," he says. "And I know you don't want that anymore, realistically. And so we're going to pretend like I never said what I just said, because I'm sure you're not deliberately trying to confuse me. But."

"But," Louis agrees. He shoves his hands into the damp pockets of his denim shorts and hitches his head toward the parking lot. Harry nods, and they fall into step together. "I do genuinely think there's something off about her," he says as they walk. "That's all I wanted to tell you. I don't know what her designs are."

"Yeah, still not helping," Harry says, darting a glance at Louis and then looking straight ahead. 

He's thinking deeply, probably chastising himself. Louis can tell because he's probing at an old cavity with his tongue, and his cheek is bulging with it. "This doesn't change anything," he tells Harry, as they reach the parking lot. "Like, I mean, our truce can hold."

"Well, thanks," Harry says, dryly, but he does look truly relieved, so Louis smiles at him as they climb into their separate cars.

He sits in the parking lot until Harry drives away. Only then does he allow himself to press two fingers against his mouth. Staring across the horizon, mind swirling with a muddle of incomprehensible thoughts, he just sits and feels the weight of them against his lips.

It's a long time before he replaces them with a cigarette and starts on the drive home.

+++

Louis avoids Harry.

There's no other way to put it. His thoughts have been swirling ever since Harry dropped the bomb in Louis's world. He has a ceaseless litany of memories of all the times they've kissed, a rolodex of intimate memories in vivid technicolor in his mind. Each time a new one pops up, he has to go through his list of why he can't just check, maybe once, to see if Harry's kisses still make him feel the same way - like he's drowning and coming home all at once. 

Because that's a terrible idea. He still can't trust Harry as far as he could throw him, and just because thoughts of physical intimacy are crossing his mind unbidden for the first time in three years doesn't mean he should challenge that mistrust.

So he begs on for shifts at Dan's hunting store whenever he doesn't have work at Blue Heron or Barthell. Flood clean-up is still at a standstill, but there are phone banks now, people begging for the money to rebuild, sitting in the church across from the school gym, since the gym is still taken up by people who can't move back home yet, dialling number after number

He goes to one. He sits in the back of the overly air-conditioned sanctuary, shivering where the air pounds over the dried sweat on his skin, calling numbers on the list. "Have you heard about the McCreary County flood disaster?" he asks, every time someone picks up. 

It's not the kind of repetition he enjoys.

When Louis is about ten abortive calls in, Taylor starts getting agitated on the phone. He can hear her from halfway across the room. She deviates from the script, saying, "You realize that McCreary County is one of the five poorest counties in the entire _country_ , right? There is _no capital_ to rebuild. No, the Red Cross's assets are spread too thin. No, they voted to defund that _last year_." Her tone grows darker, angrier. "Well, God bless your soul too, sir. You'll need it."

She slams her phone down onto the pew and leans back, closing her eyes. 

Louis doesn't go over, though. He's avoiding Taylor, too. 

When Harry slides over to where Taylor's sitting and leans in, concern written all over his face, clearly asking if she's doing okay or if she needs a break, Louis slips out of the church and drives straight home.

+++

Harry is the first to break the silence. He shows up in the middle of one of Louis's guided tours at Barthell and waits until Louis looks his way. "Sorry," he says, twisting his hands around each other and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "But can we talk?"

"About what?" Louis asks. "I'm clearly in the middle of showing this fine family around the company store."

"Begging your pardon," Harry says, facing the family and turning his charm up to eleven. His hair is greasy, skin sallow under his tan, but he grins, eyes twinkling and dimple popping, and glances bashfully at the ground. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I wanted to talk to my friend here about relief efforts." He looks up at the parents. Earnestly, he adds, "Have you heard about the flood relief efforts? A lot of people are out of their homes. It's truly tragic."

"I think we did hear something about that, yeah," the mom murmurs, looking across at her husband. "So sad."

"Well," Harry says. His dimple deepens, and he pushes a hand through his hair. "If you find it in your hearts to give a little so people in our community can replace what they've lost and move back home again, I'd be surely grateful."

Louis gives everyone a big smile. "Harry, you can't just solicit donations from visitors to my place of work," he says through his teeth. "I'm so sorry, everyone."

"I _do_ beg pardon," Harry says. "Louis, I'll wait for you in the office till you're done here."

He winks at the family as he goes. The oldest daughter looks completely dumbstruck, and the mom isn't far behind. 

Well. That's _one_ way to get donations.

Louis is distracted as he finishes the tour. He leaves the family at the schoolhouse - the younger kids wanted to play around there - and trudges back to the main office.

Harry unfolds himself from behind the desk - of course he's talked his way back there - and meets Louis at the door. "In private, please?"

"Um," Louis says, uncertainly. Grace is paying more attention to her phone than to him and Harry, but there's no guarantee that she won't end up gossiping that they were alone together to all of her friends. He casts a glance around the room, then looks up at Harry. 

"I won't, like, try anything," Harry assures him. "Promise."

Louis hadn't actually been worried about that, which is a realization he _definitely_ doesn't want to explore. "Fine," he says. "Granny's house will be empty right now."

So they trudge silently up the path to the reconstructed raw-lumber cottage at the edge of the camp. 

Louis locks the door behind them and sits down on the edge of the wire-frame bed, pushing the ancient patchwork quilt carefully out of the way first. "So. What's up?"

"I'm really sorry to like, approach you again," Harry says. He lowers himself to the floor by the old stove, back to the wall. He wraps his arms around his legs and props his chin up on his knee. "But like, I think there might be something to your suspicions."

"You're going to have to be more specific than that," Louis says. The polite Kentucky boy inside of him wants to insist that it's no problem that Harry came to his work like this, especially after he's been clearly avoiding him, but he stops himself before he can let the words come out.

Harry sighs. "There's something off about Taylor," he says. "I can't place what, though. So I was thinking that maybe we could figure it out together?"

Louis rocks back. "You seemed pretty cosy with her at the phonathon the other day," he says, trying to keep the accusatory note out of his voice.

"Look," says Harry. He studies his hands as he talks, careful not to meet Louis's eyes. "I know you have that weird jealousy thing going on about her and me, and I want you to know that I'm not telling you this in any kind of attempt to trigger that and get you to, like, do something drastic, okay?"

"Really not doing anything to make me feel any less worried, Harry," Louis says, warningly. 

"Right," Harry says. "I just don't want to, like, upset you when I tell you this. Because I know it's a lot of things you won't want to hear." 

He looks up at Louis. His stupid green eyes are totally luminous. Worried, yes, but shining bright just the same. 

Louis honestly hates him.

"Just say it, Harry," he says, exhaustedly.

"The thing is," Harry says, slowly, not breaking eye contact in an aggressive enough way that it tells Louis that Harry is trying very, very hard not to look away right now. "I've never felt this way about a girl before, and it doesn't make sense that it would start now."

"What the fuck are you saying," Louis says. He can't even begin to identify what his heart is doing - just that it's squeezing, painfully, inside his chest.

"I like her," Harry says, simply. He still hasn't blinked. Louis's eyes ache at the very thought. "I shouldn't feel this drawn to her, though. Something has to be wrong."

"Maybe you're bi," Louis says, hollowly. 

It's a cruel twist of fate, this is. Harry had come to him just like this, years and years ago, and told Louis privately, voice wavering, that he was worried because he couldn't find it in himself to be interested in girls the way everyone else was. That every time he tried to even kiss a girl, or hold her hand, or ask her on a date, he found himself thinking about Louis instead. That he was sorry, but that he thought he might be gay.

Then, Louis had responded by kissing Harry. _Are you still gay?_ he had asked, after pulling back, dazed from the sensation of Harry's chapped lips pressed, dry and chaste, against his own. _Because I'd hoped you might like me, too._.

Now, a kiss would be, like, the opposite of a solution. 

Harry laughs. His laugh sounds as empty as Louis feels. "I'm definitely not that," he says. Something in his voice gives Louis pause. Like Harry'd tried, in those years he was gone. Like he'd been with other people. Like he could even begin to bring himself to develop interest in someone besides Louis. 

Fury, hot and white, flares inside Louis's chest. He swallows around the feeling. He has no cause to be upset that Harry could move on. It's not his place to be mad about it. It's probably not Harry's fault that Louis could never bring himself to not be hung up on the guy. "You sure about that?" he asks, as evenly as he can manage.

"Like," Harry says, frowning with thought. "I like her as a person, right? I always have. She's a great girl. But lately I've caught myself wanting to kiss her almost as much as I want to kiss you."

"So kiss her," Louis says. He forces himself to add, "What do I care?"

The lie curdles in his mouth. He clears his throat. 

"Right," Harry says, voice small. He's silent for several long, fraught minutes, studying his hands again, before he looks up at Louis. "No, here's the thing, Lou. I don't want to. It's like -" He chuckles again, ruefully this time. "This is going to sound so stupid, but honestly the urge feels like, this crisis of faith? Whenever it strikes me. Like, she was mad at someone at the phonathon the other day, and - I don't know how to describe it. The feeling that came over me."

Louis presses his lips together for a long, long moment and tries to clear his head. "Is it the way that it feels like ants crawling all over you, like, underneath your skin when she touches you?" he asks.

"Kind of?" Harry says. "That's not entirely it, but it's also not not-it."

"On the phone when we were at Blue Heron," Louis says, slowly. "She said it was easier to open a mind than a heart."

Harry nods. "It's like there's this weird outside power that's certainly trying to get _one_ of those things to happen," he admits. 

Louis tries for a joke. "Maybe it's God stepping in," he says. "Trying to bend you to His will, or whatever."

Harry doesn't laugh. His frown just deepens. 

It wasn't a very good joke, anyway.

"Anyway," Harry says, eventually. "She seems like a great girl and I'd love to like her like that - she might even return the feelings, you know. But. It doesn't feel natural, the um. The urge to kiss her. So. There's something suspicious going on." He blinks, finally, several times in quick succession. "I may have mentioned something to Niall."

"Niall _loves_ Taylor," Louis says.

"Yeah, he laughed in my face," Harry says. A tiny smile finally starts to play at his lips. "Good old Horan."

"Good old Horan," Louis says. "So I guess you came to me because I also, like. Don't really trust her anymore?"

"Right," Harry says. A look of relief crosses his face. "That's exactly it. I was thinking we could work together to, like, get to the bottom of this. If, um. If you were willing."

"I would say no," Louis says. "But Harry, on the phone - she also said she caused the flood."

Harry's head falls back against the wall with a thunk. "What," he says with a wince.

"Maybe I misheard," Louis says. "But she said it was partially her fault. For showing up. Whatever that means."

"Is this, like," Harry says. He scrubs a hand through his hair. "Liam may have mentioned that you blamed yourself for the flood. Something about a prayer gone wrong?"

"That is exactly none of Liam's business," Louis says coldly. "Or yours." He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. "But. I don't know. I don't know how she meant it."

"So we need to get to the bottom of it," Harry says, nodding. 

Louis is quiet for a long time. He's itching for a cigarette. He always thinks better when he's smoking one. But he can't smoke in Granny's house, so he has to sort through his feelings about working with Harry to figure out what's going on with a girl that Harry wants to kiss without one. "Fine," he says, at long last. "But if I'm going to be working with you in any way, shape, or form, we have _got_ to clear the air." 

Is that revealing too much?

Does it matter?

"Clear the air how?" Harry asks, carefully.

"Like," Louis says. "Half of the time I'm furious with you, and if we're going to be talking regularly, about something else that makes me mad, I can't have that. We have to go over, you know, literally everything that happened between us. Okay?"

Harry purses his lips, considering. "Okay," he agrees, eventually. "Now?"

"Fuck, no," Louis says. "I need a smoke like nothing else." He pauses. "Come over tonight, I guess. After you have dinner, or whatever. Niall will be home, but there's places outside where we can talk."

"Okay," Harry nods. "Eight, then?"

"Eight sounds good," Louis says.

He gets up, straightens out the quilt on the bed, and unlocks the door.

He's already off the porch and lighting up by the time Harry makes his way outside.

+++

"Are you _absolutely positive_?" Niall asks, crossing his arms.

"I swear," says Louis. "You'll be right here. We'll be just past the treeline. It'll be fine."

"Are you trying to convince me or yourself?" Niall sags back against the arm of the couch. "You don't have to do this."

Louis sighs. "I really, really do," he says. "And when Harry goes, you'll be here and we can have a cuddle and a nice sleep. Right?"

"Right," says Niall. "But are you really positive? Because you keep pacing back and forth."

Oh. "Oh," Louis says. He forces himself to stop walking across his tiny living room. "Suppose I am."

Niall gives Louis a piercing look. "I think this is good," he says. "You and Harry having it out. I think that you both need it."

"Thank you," says Louis. "For being here tonight. For after he leaves."

"You sure you won't want me to be gone?" Niall asks, waggling his eyebrows. "Like, if he stays."

"He won't," Louis says, firmly. "It'll just be you and me tonight, Horan."

"You and me and the devil makes three," Niall sings. He's still waggling his eyebrows. He's ridiculous.

"I'm going to tell Harry that you called him the devil," Louis warns.

Niall's smile doesn't diminish. "I won't deny it," he says. His eyes are soft as he looks at Louis. "You seem better lately, Louis. A lot better."

"Thanks, I think," Louis says, brow furrowed. Better than what?

He's about to ask when the rattle of a car driving up his patchy driveway comes in through the half-open window. He freezes. There's the slam of a car door, and a series of footsteps, and then Harry's knocking on Louis's door.

"Hey," Louis says, wrenching it open.

"Hi," Harry replies. His eyes are bright as he holds up a sixpack of expensive fucking beers. "Brought refreshments." He peers around Louis and waves. "What do you say, Niall? Want some?"

"Don't mind if I do," says Niall. "Something to keep me company when I steal me my old banjo back from Louis here for the night." 

"Sure thing," Harry says. He takes two of the beers out and pauses, looking down at the threshold and back up at Louis.

At least he's respecting the fact that Louis didn't technically invite him in, Louis supposes. He takes the bottles from Harry and tosses them at Niall, who gives a low whistle when he sees the brand. "Shit, Haz, Sam Adams ain't cheap."

Harry quirks a smile. "Only the best for you, Nialler."

"Damn straight," Niall says. He hauls himself up off the couch and walks over to slap Harry five, and then pull Louis into a hug. "Godspeed," he whispers into Louis's ear.

"Don't wreck my place up while we're gone," Louis says, loudly, and then he ushers Harry down the steps, following right behind.

"So," says Harry, once the door slams shut behind them. "He really does live here, huh."

"The walls of my trailer are incredibly fucking thin," Louis says. "And yeah. Best friend prerogative. He stays with his dad some, too."

"Hmmm," Harry says. He purses his lips, then shakes his head slightly. "Where too, then?"

So Louis leads him out past the treeline. There's an old oak to the back of the property that came crashing down last winter, and the remaining logs make for pretty decent sitting.

Definitely better than taking Harry to the hammock, at least.

Harry stays quiet until they're settled. He cracks open a beer bottle and passes it to Louis, then opens one for himself. Contemplatively, picks at the label for a moment, then takes a long swig. 

When it's clear Harry's not going to start, Louis clears his throat. "So," he says. "Where do you want to begin?"

"Hey, you brought me out here," Harry jokes. He shrugs. "We can start at the end, maybe? Work back from there."

"Okay," says Louis. "I can do that."

"But like -" Harry sighs. "Look. I'm just going to say this, okay? I know you. I know when you don't like someone very much, you want to avoid giving them ammo that they could use against you. And I know you don't like me very much anymore. No, don't interrupt," he says, holding up a hand, when Louis sits up straighter and opens his mouth to interject. "I can take the truth. But I think it's important to be brutally honest with each other. Don't gloss over anything. I promise to do my best to never use anything you say here against you."

Louis thinks it over. There's been so many things he's omitted in his conversations with Harry, so much stuff he's glossed over for his own protection. If he puts it all out there, he'll be ripping off all the scabs, and then he'll be laid out raw, vulnerable to attack. 

He wants to think that he can trust Harry not to throw any revelations back in his face, but he's been wrong to trust Harry for that precise thing before. 

"I can try," he decides, finally. "No holds barred?"

"No holds barred," Harry agrees. 

"I'll probably end up yelling at you," Louis warns. "At some point."

"I know what I'm getting myself into, Louis," Harry says. "Regardless, I really want to get to the bottom of this, so that we can get to the bottom of Taylor Swift."

"Okay," Louis says. He takes a deep breath and a long swig of beer. Brutal honesty. He can do that, but he'll have to rip the entire bandaid off immediately if he's going to stick to it. He takes another sip of beer, then confesses, "You leaving town was the worst thing that ever happened to me."

Harry nods. "Okay," he says. There's a tremble in his voice. He clears his throat and then says, more firmly, "I don't regret leaving. I needed to make that choice for myself."

God. This conversation isn't going to be an easy one. Louis had known that from the get-go, of course, but being in the moment - it's one thing to expect to hear Harry say that kind of thing, but actually listening to him say it shakes him up so much more than he thought it would. "It really hurts me," he says, "That you don't believe in God and yet you'd do so much for the church that practically ran us out of town on a rail."

Harry peels more of the label on his bottle off. "Just because the parishioners were jerks doesn't mean the church doesn't accomplish beautiful things, too," he says. "There's so much good in religion, Louis. It just gets… drowned out by the static, I guess. I wanted to contribute to the good. Help it drown out the bad a little. Make sure other people didn't get treated the way we did."

"By evangelizing for a God you don't even believe in to people who are perfectly fine without Christianity being shoved down their throats?"

"I didn't do that kind of mission trip, Louis," Harry says. His tone is a little short, but he closes his eyes and rolls his sweating bottle of beer across his forehead. When he speaks again, he's calmer. "I told you that before I left."

"I still don't understand it," Louis says. "I've never understood."

Harry sighs. "Louis, I had to get out of here. The things people were saying - I wasn't just ignoring them and going on merrily about my life and throwing myself even more into a church that was doing its damndest to kick us out. They really got to me."

Louis blinks. "You never said."

"Yeah, because they were getting to you, too, and every time I got close to explaining it, you'd cut me off and yell at me for not believing in God!"

"That's another thing I don't get," Louis says. He sets his bottle down on the ground and nestles it against the log, then straightens up, swinging one leg up and over to the other side of the trunk so that he's straddling it and facing Harry directly. "And I ain't going to apologize for yelling at you about it because you still could have _said_ something back then. I wasn't yelling all the time."

"I didn't want to interrupt the few times we were having sex to whine at you about my feelings," Harry says. He's staring at the neck of his bottle instead of looking at Louis.

Louis nudges Harry's leg with his toe. "You could have," he says. "You should have."

"It's all moot now, anyway," says Harry. "And no offense but it clearly still bothers you that I don't believe in God. Which doesn't make any sense, because you hate religion."

"Guess we're just opposites that way," Louis says. He shrugs one shoulder. "I know God exists. I know that God is an asshole, too, but I've never doubted that He's out there. Back then, I loved God. I just hated what people did in His name. Now, I don't think that God does much in His own name, either. Given me the exact opposite of everything I've prayed for in the past three years." He runs his fingers along the bark of the log. It's rough. He presses his fingertips into the ridges and lets the dull ache ground him. Slowly, he says, "I think if you did less for the church, it would bother me less that you don't believe."

"I can accept that," Harry says. He pauses. "Why didn't you come with me? I asked you to."

"I could never leave, Harry," says Louis. He leans over and picks up his beer, but doesn't drink. "Do you remember? I almost left once."

Harry nods. "Berea," he says. "For college. You didn't tell anyone at all except me about it."

"Yeah," Louis says. "Something about staying home to help mama through her divorce, picking up jobs to help make ends meet after we lost the bulk of Mark's income… I feel like my blood's in the dirt of these hills, Harry. I've built a life up here. There may be a lot of bad in these here parts, but I can't just walk away from it when it's where my whole family is." His nose is itching like he might start to cry, just at the thought of living anywhere but in McCreary County. He blinks hard, once, to try and make the feeling go away. "I love this stupid place. Even if I could afford to move out, I'd still want to build my own family here."

"So you picked the county over me," Harry says, dully. 

"You're not _listening_ to me," Louis warns. "There's too much keeping me here. Anyway, you could have stayed. We could have worked through all that shit at the church _together_. You know how I was about Zayn leaving, even though I _knew_ it was really fucking hard of him to be one of the, like, hundred non-white people in this entire county. _And_ I wasn't in love with Zayn." 

"You know," Harry says, tersely. "It was really fucking unreasonable of you to expect me to stay. Louis, we were fighting every day by the time I made up my mind to go. No one was talking to us, outside of our families and very closest friends, and we were just yelling at each other. You knew how much I wanted to get out and see the world. Maybe you didn't know that I was that upset by what the church was doing, but you _did_ know that I didn't want to be here anymore. You knew I needed to get out. I don't know why you were so _surprised_ that I actually left."

"I prayed, okay?" Louis shouts. "I prayed that you wouldn't go, and then the next fucking morning you were gone. Didn't even say goodbye. Never once texted me to say, hey, I made it to fucking _Africa_ or wherever, have a nice life. Nothing. For three _years_ , Harry."

"You told me that if I left I better never come back again!" Harry says. "You said to never talk to you ever again if I dared to go! And I never went to Africa. You know that."

"I don't, actually," says Louis. "You certainly talked about going there enough before you went. How was I supposed to know that you never ended up there?"

"I don't know!" Harry yells. He sighs. "There was plenty of missionary work in places I could afford to get to. There were plenty of people I could help _just_ in North America. And I helped them, Louis. I helped them a lot."

"Well, fucking good for you," says Louis. "I'm glad you had such a great time after going away. Why don't you just go back now and leave us all alone?"

Harry presses his lips together so hard they turn white, even in the half-light of the moon. He gestures angrily, opens his mouth, and then closes it again. After huffing out a furious breath through his nose, he holds up one finger and takes several big gulps from his beer.

"Okay," he says eventually. "We knew we would end up yelling at each other. But I'm going to try to stop now, because if I keep shouting I'm going to keep blaming you instead of listening to you."

"You blame me?" Louis demands. "What do you blame me for?"

"Louis, I was eighteen years old," Harry says. "I was a _kid_. Shut out of my entire community, more or less, with a boyfriend I kept fighting with and who kept saying that we should settle down in the community that was shutting us out instead of going somewhere better. There was no way I could stay. You were an adult. You didn't have to make me leaving turn out the way it did."

"I was hardly more than a kid myself," Louis points out. "I was hopelessly in love with you, and then you blindsided me by telling me you wanted to go. I was expecting you to go to college, Harry, somewhere in-state where I could see you on weekends. I wasn't expecting anything less. But I also wasn't expecting for you to drop a bomb on me and say that you were leaving the country for a year as soon as you graduated high school." He finishes off his bottle and reaches for the next one. He doesn't open it, though. He just holds it in his hands and stares down at it as he talks. "We fought about God before you decided to go, but we didn't get into really _bad_ fights about Him or religion until after you let me know."

"I don't regret making my decision," Harry says, after a long silence. "To go. I had to choose to do that. I had to do it for me." He laughs, hollowly. "But, since we're being honest here - I regretted leaving from the day after I went."

Something stirs inside Louis. His heart twinges, just slightly, and just like that, half of his anger fades away. He looks up from his beer bottle, directly into Harry's eyes. "What?" he asks, quietly.

"I was stubborn," Harry says, ruefully. "And ornery. You know how I can get."

"I know how you can get," Louis agrees. He can't stop looking at Harry, at the way the moonlight is casting the shadows of Harry's eyelashes across his cheeks, at the way Harry keeps glancing down and back up. 

"I didn't want to admit defeat," says Harry. "I did really love missionary work. I really, truly did. I wasn't ever going to come back here."

"So why did you?" Louis asks. "You have family in Alabama. Your mom could have visited you there."

"Well," Harry says, a wry twist to his mouth. "I finally accepted that I'd never be happy if I didn't come back and give everything my all. You know? I had to know that I put the greatest effort in. And if I failed, I failed, but it wasn't because I didn't try."

"What do you mean by everything?" Louis asks. He feels like his skin is thrumming, tight and sensitive with anticipation.

"You, Louis," Harry says, simply, heavily. "I couldn't give up on you."

"So when you said you'd leave me alone if I wanted," Louis says, slowly. "Was that you… what _was_ that?"

"That was me understanding that doing everything doesn't necessarily mean pushing you," Harry admits. "That maybe doing everything just means accepting the fallout from my decisions."

Harry tries to look away. He dips his head, focusing anywhere but on Louis's face. Without even thinking, Louis reaches out and grabs Harry's chin, forces him to maintain eye contact. Harry's skin is so warm, a few unshaved hairs poking into Louis's hand.

His heart twinges again.

"When you left," he says, forcing himself to keep looking directly at Harry, forcing himself to not jerk his hand away and cradle it to his chest. "I had a meltdown. A really big, really bad one."

"Louis," Harry says, softly. He brings his hand up and cups it around Louis's own and tugs it away from his chin.

He doesn't let go, though. Just keeps holding on to Louis's fingertips, light as you please.

"It lasted a long time," Louis says. "I was just starting to pull myself out of it when you came back. Had my routines down. Never prayed, because I couldn't trust God after He let you go." He laughs a little, humorlessly. "I did pray that you wouldn't come back, but instead we got both you _and_ the flood."

"So is the flood my fault or yours?" Harry asks. When Louis doesn't respond, he squeezes his hand. "Bad joke. Sorry."

"Yeah, that wasn't even a little bit funny," Louis agrees, but acknowledging that is enough to get him to laugh for real. A short laugh, but an honest one that loosens up the mental vice grip he's keeping around all of his emotions. 

Suddenly, talking becomes just that little bit easier.

"Anyway," says Louis, debating pulling his hand free and opening his beer versus leaving it where it is, still tangled up with Harry's. He ends up using his teeth to pry the cap off, then takes a sip. "The breakdown I had - it was pretty instrumental in bringing the community back around to my side. They saw how bad off I was and, like, kind of rallied? Or at least gave up on keeping me out."

"Oh," Harry says. "So that's why everyone…"

"That's why everyone hasn't been as weird as you may have expected, since you've been back," Louis nods. He laughs. "Or maybe Eleanor just lectured everyone into submission, who knows."

"Why would Eleanor-?"

"Um." Louis looks away briefly, toward the light coming from the windows of his single-wide through the trees, then forces himself to meet Harry's gaze again. "Like. She came down the weekend after I bought this land, and I was in a really bad way? Don't ever tell her I told you this, but like. We had sex. Or, well, we tried, but I couldn't. I just cried instead." He laughs a little, ruefully. "I haven't been able to have sex since you left. I haven't tried since that night with El. Greg fucking Bentley even _approached me_ once and I couldn't - I ignored him."

"You always had such a thing for Greg Bentley," Harry says, musingly, which isn't super accurate, but whatever. "Didn't think I'd made that big of an impact." 

It's clear that he's trying to make some kind of joke about his sexual prowess, but the words still twist at Louis's heart. Of _course_ Harry would make that big of an impact. If Louis is being honest with himself as well as with Harry tonight, then he needs to admit that he can't bring himself to let Harry think he might not be just as important to Louis as Louis once was to him. 

"You fucking idiot," he blurts, the fondness in his voice belying his words before he can even get them out. "You've always known that you're the love of my fucking life."

Harry holds himself very, very still. Fingers tense around Louis's, he says, slow as anything, "Was. Right? I was the love of your fucking life."

Louis's tongue feels too big for his mouth. He shakes his head minutely, but that's not enough of an answer for Harry. He knows it's not. He'll need to say something.

He can't speak.

"Right?" Harry demands, when it's clear that Louis isn't talking. "Right, Louis?"

Louis wants to say: I don't know. He wants to say: I'm sorry. He wants to say: Let's just change the subject, okay?

But he can't lie, and he can't talk.

Brutal honesty. That's the name of the game, right? 

Slowly, he turns his hand over so that his palm is facing Harry's, rather than Harry's hand just cradling his own.

Not breaking eye contact, he squeezes.

Awareness floods Harry's face, and he squeezes back, just once.

"I'm glad we had this talk," he says. "I think it was very good for getting us back on the same page."

Louis is spread open, raw and emotional, in front of Harry. So far, Harry isn't reopening the worst of Louis's protected wounds, but Louis still can't bring himself to risk it by speaking.

So he just nods instead.

+++

"How did it go?" Niall asks, moving to set the banjo aside when Louis gets back to the trailer. He drops it plumb on the ground when Harry comes in after him.

"It was fine," Louis says. He's still feeling unsteady, but they'd joked a little on the walk back, reminisced about some lighthearted times, and he's more or less back on solid footing. "Think we worked through the bulk of our problems, didn't we, Harry?"

"We certainly talked through most of them with minimal shouting," Harry agrees. He peers down the hall. "Your bathroom is…?"

"To the left," Louis says. As soon as Harry is out of sight, he climbs onto the couch next to Niall and lays down, putting his head firmly in Niall's lap.

Niall, dutiful best friend that he is, starts stroking Louis's hair, which makes Louis feel even better. "I'm fucking thrilled about this," he murmurs. "It's like, really good for you that you're talking to him about all of this. I'm just…"

"Surprised?" Louis asks. "Yeah, me too. Turns out we have a common cause, though, so."

"But flood cleanup is mostly finished," says Niall. "Unless y'all think it's as weird as I do that Liam is dating Ms Cole and you wanted to stage an intervention."

"Actually," Harry says, coming back down the hall and drying his hands off on his shorts. "We wanted to figure out what's up with Taylor Swift. There's something… um. Something really weird about her, basically."

"Wait," Niall says, and he starts laughing hard enough that he jostles Louis's head. "Y'all're talking again because you think something's wrong with _Taylor_? Your friend, Taylor Swift. Really."

"What's so funny?" Louis asks. "She has that weird static electricity thing. She makes weird phone calls. Harry has a weird crush on her even though he's gay. There's nothing about her that isn't bizarre, Niall."

" _And_ we intend to get to the bottom of it," Harry adds.

"Is this like when we were kids and Harry got into the Encyclopedia Brown books?" Niall asks. "Are you going to become true detectives again?"

Louis had forgotten about that. "That was a great fucking time and we were genius detectives, Niall, but no. It's not like that."

"Well," Niall says. "There is absolutely no way something fucked up is going on with her. She's a literal angel, guys. Have you seen her? There's nothing wrong with her." 

"Um, does this mean you have feelings for her?" Harry asks, darting a glance at Louis. 

Louis is stupid grateful that Harry didn't add 'too' to that. "We're not saying that she's, you know, definitely harmful," he says. 

Niall rolls his eyes and shoves Louis's head off his lap so he can stand up. Louis has to scramble to keep from falling off the couch. He sits up once he's steady again.

"Classic," Niall snorts, as he heads toward the kitchenette with his empty bottles. "At least y'all are talking again."

"Do you think we offended him?" Harry asks, once Niall's out of sight.

"He'll get over it," Louis says, staring after Niall. "We better work fast, though."

"Just to be clear," Harry says. When Louis looks back toward him, Harry looks soft, uncertain. "This talk we've had. Do you want me to keep avoiding you? Or are you okay with me, you know. Initiating conversations."

Louis considers the question seriously. It would be so, so easy to tell Harry he only wants to talk about sorting out the Taylor Swift problem, but that feels… disingenuous at best, now. If Harry is truly back for good - and Louis isn't certain that he is, despite everything they just shared with each other - he can't just keep on holding Harry at arms' length. That's far too much to ask for a town as small as Stearns.

"It's okay," he says, finally. His lips start curling up into a smile, despite himself. "I guess we can be on speaking terms again."

"Oh thank God," says Harry, and he holds his hand out for a fist-bump.

+++

Nothing much changes, after Louis's silent confession. Harry doesn't try for anything with him; Louis doesn't, either. But they're calmer together. Neither one of them flies into a rage at the drop of a hat. They sit together when they're both called into the phonathon, and Harry sits in the same pew as Louis at church.

They talk, too. They talk a lot. Harry folds seamlessly into the conversations Louis, Liam, and Niall have about the music night on the train, and rolls his eyes fondly when they talk about how they're still shooting out the traffic light on special occasions, and offers up anecdotes from the work he did as a missionary, assisting with health care and literacy education for God and church all over the continent.

Or, well. It was supposed to be for God, but with Harry, it was probably just for church.

(Louis certainly hasn't gotten completely over all of his reservations about Harry's relationship with religion.)

Try as he might, though, Louis can't get the image of Harry and Taylor, locked in an intimate embrace, off his mind. Sometimes it makes jealousy and hurt flare, annoyingly, in his chest.

Once it makes him palm at his cock, before he catches himself and goes outside to smoke a cigarette about it, exhaling through the overwhelming guilt.

All in all, though, it's too much for him to idly experience. So when Harry's stolen Niall's seat at the information desk one day at Blue Heron, while Niall's off doing a routine inspection of the grounds, Louis sucks it up and confronts the issue. "Look," he says, twisting around in his chair to face Harry. "I want to say something that you might not like to hear."

"As per," Harry says, waggling his eyebrows at Louis. He straightens up at Louis's glare, though, and stops carefully shredding the office's entire stock of paper towels into tiny pieces. "What's up, then?"

"Sexuality is fluid," Louis says. He pauses."I keep thinking about what you said about Taylor. You're allowed to like her. Maybe you like some girls."

Harry bites his lip. "I wasn't, like, celibate," he confesses. "There was a while when I decided that the best way to get over you was to sleep with as many different people as I could manage. Whenever, like, missionary work allowed."

The joke is too easy to let slide, and joking is easier than letting the words sink in. "Missionary work allowed for missionary work?" 

"Exactly," Harry laughs. "Anyway, I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that girls are lovely and I like them very much. They make great friends. But I don't crave them. That's just not part of who I am."

"But Taylor…"

"I want to kiss her the most when you're making her laugh," Harry says. "I think maybe I want to be her, a little, when you guys are that close.

Huh. "So I'm not the only one who gets weirdly jealous around her?" Louis holds himself very still. He doesn't know what kind of answer he wants to get.

"I guess you could say that," Harry says. He shrugs, a little awkwardly. "You know me. Any time I don't understand something, I want to put my tongue on it."

A series of extremely explicit memories flash through Louis's mind. It takes him a minute of working his mouth to actually get words to come out. "I remember," he says, dryly, and clears his throat. "So you slept with girls?"

"I mean, I managed to, yeah," Harry says. "Really illustrated the difference, there." He pauses. "I'm sorry."

"We were broken up," Louis says, and then: "We're not together now, either. It's okay."

"Okay," Harry says, looking back down at his lap. "If it were two years ago, I'd probably sleep with her," he offers. "If premarital sex is something she'd be interested in."

"And yet you're definitely gay," Louis says, just to make sure.

"It's the label that works for me," Harry says, primly, and Louis chokes out a laugh. "So let's figure out Taylor Swift in a way that doesn't involve me putting her in my mouth."

" _Really_ not helping," Louis grits out. Sheesh. He'd wanted to get the mental images of Taylor and Harry together out of his head, not work them further in. 

"I'm just _saying_ ," Harry says, tossing some paper towel bits at Louis. They both watch them flutter to the ground before Harry says, "I just think that talking about her behind her back maybe isn't the best way to figure out what's up. Like, maybe we should ask her directly?"

"Look at you," Louis says. "Mr. Confrontational."

"It's a new thing that seems to be working out for me," Harry agrees. "So I'm trying it out, I guess."

"Right." Looking at Harry, who's leaning forward, eyes warm and bright, flecks of paper towel bits strewn all over his legs, suddenly becomes too much. Louis closes his eyes for a moment, but the sight of Harry's hair, hanging long and clean around his face, doesn't fade away, so he opens them again, resigned. "So. How do you want to do this, then?"

+++

The opportunity arises not three days later. Louis just outside the church phonathon again, smoking a cigarette and trying to work up the energy go inside when Taylor comes, laughing, down the sidewalk.

Harry is with her. _You have no right to be jealous again_ , Louis is telling himself, when Harry shoots him a look, eyes wide with alarm.

Somehow, Harry's clear panic makes Louis feel even better than a conspiratorial wink would. "What's up, guys?" Louis asks, as they get within easy earshot, blowing smoke through the corner of his mouth so that it doesn't drift in their direction. 

"The county found money," Taylor says, grinning big. "Enough to reinforce the reservoir with _actual_ construction-grade materials. Enough to begin to repair all those houses." She laughs again, delighted. "With the donations we have already, people should be able to replace all their furniture and everything!"

 _That's a little too convenient_ , Louis thinks, fully recognizing that he's being a full-on assjerk in thinking so. The county desperately needs the money. "That's amazing," he says, weakly. "A miracle, in fact."

"That's what _I_ was just telling her," Harry says. 

Two weeks ago, Harry saying so, in that tone of voice, with that look on his face - it would have rankled. Louis would have snapped at him, angry that Harry'd had the same thought he did, angry that Harry was hanging out with Taylor at all when Louis was just as likely to spend time with her.

Now, Louis just gives Harry a once-over, trying to get a sense of if Harry thinks this is a good time to confront Taylor about that phone call. His eyes get caught on the vee of Harry's shirt, open three buttons down, tattoos on his chest peeking out.

It takes him a moment to bring himself to look away. "How do you know?" Louis asks, clearing his throat. "Did someone say something?"

Taylor grins. "Pulled some strings with some people in high places," she says, happily. "It took a while, but they finally agreed to help out."

"That's great," Louis says, darting another glance at Harry. "What kind of people in high places do you know, that have enough money to basically completely bail McCreary County out of a fuckload of debt?"

"Yeah," says Harry. Adapting a light tone, he says, "Like, are there even legal means to get that kind of thing to happen?"

"God provides for those who pray," Taylor says. "And I prayed."

This time, it's Harry who looks over to Louis. "Prayer got this county, like, half a million dollars?"

"More than," Taylor says. She laughs again. "Goodness. I am _so_ relieved!"

"Me too," Louis murmurs. "Guess it doesn't mattered why it happened, after all, if it's all going to be okay in the end." 

"You didn't cause the flood with the power of prayer, Louis," Harry says, reassuringly. "Taylor, tell him that's impossible."

Taylor gives the two of them a shrewd look. "Neither of you caused the flood," she says. "God doesn't destroy. He creates."

"I think Genesis would argue with you," Louis points out.

"He was creating a better world with Noah," Taylor says, rolling her eyes. "Obviously. Did that flood do anything to create a better world?"

Louis and Harry are on better terms, but Louis isn't naive enough to think that it means the whole world is better for it. "It generated your mystery donation," he says, eventually. Then he takes a deep breath and, bravely, drops his biggest bomb. "Anyway, I wasn't worried about me. Taylor, I overheard you on the phone the other day. I heard you say that you caused the flood."

"So. Maybe the money is absolving you of doing that?" Harry adds, cautiously. 

Taylor smiles, red, red lips stretching absurdly wide. "Stop worrying about my shit," she says. "The money's good. It won't vanish, and it won't bring trouble to your community. Worry about getting your own shit together instead."

"Our - what?" Louis asks, frowning.

"You know what I'm talking about," Taylor says. "Don't play dumb." When neither Harry nor Louis say anything, she sighs. "Look, guys. Brutal honesty time. You're both great. I've had the exact same conversation with both of you about the other over the past month, like, way too many times to even start to count. Do things at your own pace, but maybe consider having those conversations with each other, too."

"Right," Harry says, slowly. "I told you all that in confidence."

"So did Louis, I assume," Taylor says, bluntly. "I'm going to go tell the good news to everyone inside the church."

"What was _that_ about?" Harry asks, once the doors are closed behind Taylor.

Louis takes a drag off his forgotten cigarette. He needs to change the subject from that last bomb that Taylor just dropped. "Do you think she's onto us?" he asks, on exhale.

"Could be," Harry says. "You did get pretty direct there at the end."

"Guess so," Louis says. He starts laughing, a little hysterically. "I did tell her that I overheard that phone call."

"You certainly did," Harry says, starting to laugh as well. "Should we, like, go in there?"

"Could do," Louis says. He throws his cigarette down and grinds it out with the toe of his shoes. "It wouldn't hurt, right?"

"I hope not," Harry says, feelingly. 

"Right, then." Louis stretches his arms back and cracks his neck. "After you?"

+++

Louis's phone starts ringing in the dead of night that following Saturday. Louis fumbles for it, peering blearily at the screen, trying to make out the name in his half-asleep state.

He can't figure it out, so he thumbs accept. "H'lo?" he croaks.

"Oh, shit." Harry sounds tremendously awake. Frenetic, even. Louis's heart pounds in response. It gives him enough of his own nervous energy that he doesn't immediately hang up on Harry. "Did I wake you up?"

"What time's it?" Louis mumbles, rubbing his eyes to try and force himself wider awake.

"Not even midnight," Harry says, apologetically. "You used to never go to bed earlier than two. I'm so sorry."

"No, s'fine," Louis says, half-sitting up in bed, propping himself up on one elbow. "What's up?"

"I mean," Harry says. He's talking so fast, for him. It's enough to force Louis's eyes wider open. "I can't stop thinking about what Taylor said. I was hoping I could come by and talk - but it's late. Go to sleep. I'm sorry."

"Shut up," Louis says. "I'm awake now, anyway." He mostly is, at least. He probably won't fall back asleep for at least another twenty minutes.

"Yeah, but you probably have work in the morning, so I should let you rest."

"Tomorrow's Sunday," Louis says, flatly. "The only thing I have in the morning is church."

"Right," Harry says. "I knew that. You should still get some sleep."

"Come over," Louis says. "If you're worried enough to call me at midnight, I'm awake enough to talk you through it."

"Oh," Harry says, softly, like something's dawning on him. "Yeah, okay. I'll be by in fifteen."

"Drive fast," Louis says. "Door's unlocked if I fall back asleep."

"Louis," Harry says. "It really can wait."

"Harry," Louis says. "I really don't mind."

"I won't bother Niall?"

"He's at Bobby's tonight," says Louis. "Missed his own bed or something dumb like that. Now come before I change my mind."

"Fine, fine," Harry says. "I'm getting into my car right now."

"Drive safe," Louis says, and clicks off the phone.

 _Drive safe_? Who the fuck is he? He hasn't said anything like that to anyone but his sisters in _years_. It's exactly the kind of gentle concern he'd show Harry back when they were dating - the kind of gentle concern he really shouldn't be showing again now. 

"It's not a weakness," he tells himself, hoisting his legs over the side of the bed and forcing himself to rummage through his closet for something to wear that isn't just a ratty pair of boxers. 

By the time he's pulled on basketball shorts - no tank top; he can't be expected to deal with shirts after 11:00 at night - and stumbled into the kitchenette to pour and down a glass of water, Harry is pulling up the drive and knocking on the door.

"Come on in," Louis calls, running a hand through his hair. It's a little greasy, but Harry's seen worse, and anyway, even though there's a very nice warmth between them now that wasn't there before, it doesn't mean he needs to be worried about how he looks in front of Harry.

He's flooded with nerves all of a sudden. Harry hadn't given much of a heads-up on what's going on, beyond it being related to anything. Given that, and how frantic he sounded on the phone and how quickly he got here, it could be about just about anything.

Louis grabs his banjo as he goes into front room so that, if all else fails, he'll have something to do with his hands.

"Hey," Harry says, coming through the door. His eyes are wild and his hair is standing on end, as much as hair as long and heavy as his can do. "I'm so sorry for waking you up."

"Said it was okay, didn't I?" Louis says. He sits down on the arm of his couch, propping his feet up on the cushion below, and gestures for Harry to sit at the other end. "I'd do the same if my sisters called me in the middle of the night. I did the same when Niall called me about the flood and asked if he could come by."

"Okay," Harry says. He's clearly forcing himself to calm down, stroking his fingers across the knees of his jeans, over and over again to keep from running them back through his hair. It works to an extent, and he leans back against the other arm of the couch before he looks up and meets Louis's eyes. "If you say so."

"I do," says Louis. He stretches his fingers across the neck of the banjo and starts picking out a slow melody, barely brushing his thumb of the strings so that it's real quiet. "So, um. What's up? You said you kept thinking about what Taylor said?"

"I mean." Harry reaches up to touch his own hair, then jerks his hand away and puts it back firmly in his lap. "I've just been thinking. She said we should get our shit together, right?"

"We have," Louis says. He slows his picking down even more. "Haven't we?"

"I think that you and me have talked through a lot of our problems," says Harry. "I don't think - we haven't covered everything."

"I don't see myself as memorizing the Bible exclusively to throw it in people's faces," Louis says, immediately. "Or to protect myself from the community. I read it to try and understand why God is the way He is."

"That's not what I meant," Harry says, and he laughs a little. It's a relief to see him relax like that. It makes Louis relax a little in turn. "I just - there's something I probably needed to say when we were talking in the woods, but I didn't."

"Well, spit it out, then," Louis says. He wraps his hand fully around the neck of the banjo, holding the strings down, silencing the instrument.

"You may have already gathered," Harry says, twisting his hands together and nodding resolutely to himself. "But I'm still in love with you. Too. I'm still in love with you too."

Louis's heart thuds. "I never _actually_ said that I'm in love with you," he points out. He'd suspected that Harry might, from what Harry'd said about doing everything in his power to try again, but since Harry hadn't said anything explicitly, Louis had tried to ignore the issue. No news is good news, after all.

"You said I'm the love of your life," Harry says. It's clear, even though Louis left all the lamps off so the only light inside is coming from his kitchenette, that Harry is trying and failing to keep himself from smiling. His dimple is out in full force. "I read between the lines."

"Ugh," Louis says. He'd wanted Harry to be in love with him, he thinks. But now he regrets wanting it. Now, he has to make a choice. Now, he has to decide whether he wants to do something about the fact that they're still in love, after all these years, when he still can't shake the concern that Harry will pull another disappearing act. Still, despite Harry's promises that he's here to stay. 

He realizes, belatedly, that he's smiling just as widely as Harry is. He has to get on top of the situation somehow, so he says, "There's no way that you're in love with me." Reluctantly, he adds, "Too."

Harry clearly doesn't believe him. His smile stretches wider. "Do you want me to engrave the entire fucking Song of Songs on a boulder for you?" he asks. Louis can even hear Harry's smile in his words. Gross. "Because I will. I'll do it. If it helps convince you, I'll carve it on every fucking boulder in McCreary County."

This flusters Louis. He drags his fingers across the banjo strings. It makes a discordant, muted noise, since he's still holding tight to the neck of the thing. "Well, there's no need to get so excessive, Harry."

"Louis," Harry says. Slowly, so that Louis can tell him to stop at any point, he scoots across the couch until he's sitting by Louis's feet. Even more slowly, he reaches up and covers Louis's hands on the banjo with his own.

Louis flushes, hot all over. He can't stop staring down at Harry, at the way the shadows from Harry's eyelashes are so long in the half-light, at the way his eyes, wide and imploring, glitter as he looks up at Louis.

"Don't leave me hanging," Harry whispers. "Please. Say something."

Louis doesn't know how much time ticks by. All he can register is the pound of each heartbeat, ringing in his ears, the feeling of Harry's hands, so warm and dry on top of his own, and the way his fingertips tingle, pressed tight against the banjo strings. 

He leans down, crushing the banjo between his legs and his chest, Harry's hands trapped against them, and presses soft, dry kiss against Harry's chapped lips.

His entire body feels like it's on fire, and his head swirls, dangerously, drunkenly. Harry sighs a little against his mouth and relaxes into Louis. The added pressure against Louis's front startles him a little, so he pulls back. 

"What are you thinking?" Harry asks. His mouth is a scant two inches away from Louis's, and Louis can feel the hot puff of breath accompanying each word against his lips. Harry looks up at Louis, eyes searching. "Say something."

"You dumbass," Louis starts.

"... _Not_ what I meant," Harry interrupts. He doesn't move an inch. "But go on."

"Shut up," Louis says. "Why are you making me say it?"

"I need to hear it," says Harry. "I need you to say something serious. Not that I don't love your jokes, but. We both know that we're horrible about not putting everything out there. I need to _know_."

Louis sighs and straightens up. "I'm putting the banjo down," he says, so Harry releases his hold on Louis's hands.

When the banjo is leaning precariously against the end table behind him, Louis slips down from the arm of the couch, butt wedged against it, and props his legs over Harry's lap. "We have a shitton to work through," he says. "No matter how many times you say it, I can't convince myself that you won't leave again."

"Oh," Harry says. Some of the hope on his face dims into resignation.

"No," Louis says, putting a hand on Harry's firm bicep. "Wait. I'm saying that I still don't know if I can trust you again, yet, but I think…" He trails off, forces himself to really think through his next words. "I'm willing to try, I think. Because I do still fucking love you, you absolute fuckhole."

"I can work with that," Harry says, seriously, and then he's leaning in and kissing Louis again. 

This kiss isn't chaste. Harry leads with his teeth, nipping against Louis's lips, and follows with his tongue, licking over the dents his teeth left until Louis lets his mouth fall open and meets him halfway, pushing a hand into Harry's hair so that he can guide Harry's head closer in. 

Harry's hair is silky, tangling easily around Louis's fingers, and he puts a hot hand palm-down on the outside of Louis's thigh to keep Louis on the couch as he leans into the kiss, pushing inexorably closer, sides pressed up tight against each other. 

When Louis pulls away again, he's panting.

"Hi," Harry whispers. His eyes are bright again, and happy. He moves his free arm around Louis's back and strokes at Louis's upper arm roughly with his thumb. 

"Hey," Louis whispers back. He can't make himself stop smiling, so he goes with it, tilting his head to press a kiss against Harry's hand. It mostly lands on his own shoulder, but Harry's breath hitches when Louis's lips run over his knuckles. Louis smiles into the kiss, and lets his teeth graze over them as well.

Harry tightens his grip on Louis's arm in response. "So," he says. "Are we together, then?"

"Maybe we're taking it slower than that?" Louis suggests. "I love you, but I'm still getting used to you being back in my life."

"I can do slow," Harry promises. "Slow is good."

"Kissing is good, too," Louis says, and then Harry is using his arm to guide Louis back in close and duck in for another kiss. This one isn't deep, but it is heartfelt, lips moving with such care that it makes Louis tingle down to his toes.

"Lord," Louis says, eventually. "Where was Song of Songs when we needed it three years ago?"

"How's that?"

"If only you were my brother," Louis quotes, a smile playing at his lips as he tangles his fingers further in the ends of Harry's hair. "As if you had nursed at my mother's breast: Then I could kiss you when I met you in the street, and no one would despise me."

Harry glares at him. It's clearly a mock-glare, but there's concern underlying it. 

"Too soon?" Louis asks.

"Do you think we'll be despised again?" Harry asks, seriously. "You said that you built your good name back up, but you also did it when I wasn't here. We weren't in anyone's face at the time."

"I think," Louis says, frowning. "That there will be people who don't like it. But there are always going to be people who don't like it." He tugs at the ends of Harry's hair. "I think the biggest difference between then and now is we're both older, right? We've been through more, apart from each other. We have thicker skin. And I know that I, for one, at least have a close-knit community of family and friends here. I care about what they think, not everyone else."

"And yet the church every week," Harry murmurs. "To keep an ear out."

"There's a difference between caring and preparing," Louis says. He wiggles his butt a little to punctuate the words and try and make Harry laugh.

It works, somewhat. Harry gives a little chuckle, and digs the fingers of the hand he has resting on Louis's leg deeper into the meat of his thigh. "Always be prepared?" he asks, waggling his eyebrows.

"I _was_ a boy scout once," Louis agrees.

"Yeah, until you practically burned down the entire Daniel Boone National Forest," Harry laughs. He slides his hand up from Louis's thigh and takes Louis's hand in his own, then brings it up to press a kiss to Louis's knuckles. "You're sexy when you quote the Bible."

"From your mouth to God's ear," Louis scolds, but he doesn't actually mind. If God cared, He would have intervened a long time ago. "But. As the Song says, I would lead you. I would bring you to the house of my mother, and there you would instruct me. I would let you drink of the spiced wine, of my pomegranate juice." He waggles his eyebrows at Harry and winks.

"Your pomegranate juice, huh?" Harry asks. "Sounds tangy."

"I honestly hate you," Louis says, even though he was fully the one who started it. "I take it back, I'm not in love with you. You can go home now."

Harry just grins at him, like the dope that he is. "I really missed you being silly with me," he says. "I was worried that you'd never do it again."

How long is this earnesty thing of Harry's going to last? Louis isn't completely sure that he likes it. It makes him flush warm all over, and that could get pretty distracting pretty fast. "Well," he says, to distract himself from how hot his cheeks are feeling. "You know what the good book says."

"Tell me," Harry says.

"Many waters cannot quench love," Louis quotes, squeezing Harry's hand. "Neither can floods drown it." 

"Okay, now that _is_ too soon," says Harry, but he's still laughing at it, so Louis counts it as a win all the same.

+++

Louis is awakened, once again, by the shrill ringing of his phone.

"Louis!" Niall says, as soon as he picks up. There's a weird tone to his voice. "I'm outside. You still want that ride to church?"

"Fuck," Louis says. He looks across the bed. Harry is still curled up, sleeping away. He's in a tank top and pair of gym shorts that he borrowed from Louis. It's a good enough solution for bed, but Louis's clothes are probably too small for Harry to wear to church. "Yeah. But I just woke up, give me a few?"

"Sure," Niall says. "By the way, Harry's car is still outside. Tell him I can squeeze him in if he wants, too."

Double fuck. "Thanks, Niall," Louis says, hanging up fast.

"Whassat," Harry mumbles, flopping over, putting all the sheets out of whack as he does so. He scrubs at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Church," Louis says. "It's already near nine. Niall's outside if you want a ride?"

"Louis?" Harry says. He blinks awake. "I slept here."

"You did," Louis says, carefully. "You were too tired to drive home after we talked last night, remember?"

"Oh, right," Harry says, and a brilliant smile floods his features. "That was a nice talk. I liked it."

"I liked it, too," Louis says, and he allows himself to indulge in reaching over and stroking one finger down Harry's nose, flicking the tip of it when he reaches it.

Harry plays at biting at Louis's finger with a clack of his teeth, then leans forward to kiss the tip of it. "I can wear what I had on last night," he says, struggling around with the sheets until he's pushed himself up into a half-sitting position. "Good morning."

"Good morning," Louis echoes. Harry's hair is an aurora around his head, curls knotting up and tangling around each other, pushed every which-way. His eyes are so incredibly green in the sunlight streaming through the slats in the blinds. It's a breathtaking sight, one that Louis would be happy to look at for hours. But then Niall honks outside, one quick burst of the horn, and Louis startles out of his reverie. 

"You gonna give me a good morning kiss or what?" 

"With the morning breath you almost definitely have?" Louis asks, but doesn't actually care, so he leans in and brushes a quick one against Harry's lips, anyway. 

Niall honks again, so Louis texts _coming!!!_ and forces himself out of bed and into his church clothes.

Ten minutes later, they're both piling out the door and into Niall's jeep.

"I see how it is," Niall says, after a brief scuffle in which Louis makes it abundantly clear that he called dibs on permanent shotgun long ago. "I stay at my dad's one night and you have a booty call over to replace me." He looks incredibly pleased at the development, though, so he clearly doesn't have a leg to stand on.

"Does it count as a booty call if you're in love?" Harry asks, looking innocently out the window.

Niall raises a questioning eyebrow at Louis, who nods ever-so-slightly in return. "I think the more appropriate question here is, does it count as a booty call if you don't have sex?" Louis counters, loudly.

"Actually, the real question here is, does it count as a booty call if I'm not involved in the decision-making process," Niall interjects. He reaches over and claps Louis on the shoulder, and shoots him another look. This one clearly says, _everything okay?_

Louis tilts his head slightly to one side and smiles. _Hunky-dory. Peachy keen_.

Niall gives him a subtle _proud of you_ thumbs up. 

"Since when do you two talk without saying any words?" Harry asks, from the backseat.

"Well, Harry," Niall says, running the only red light in town. "When a man loves his best friend very much, sometimes they develop BFF-telepathy."

"Niall," Louis says. "Are you aware that you just said _BFF_?"

"I know," Niall groans. "I regretted it the very minute it came out of my mouth."

"So I shouldn't be jealous."

"You should _always_ be jealous of me and Niall's highly evolved and very perfect friendship," Louis says, sagely, and Niall holds his hand out for a fist-bump. 

"Guess we can invite Harry to our next camping trip, though," Niall says, consideringly. "He's tall. He can act as a windshield when we're trying to light the WD-40."

"You mean firewood?" Harry asks.

"Sure," says Niall. "That too, if you insist."

"Christ," Harry mutters, as they pull into the church parking lot, but he's smiling.

"That _is_ who we're going to go talk about for the next two hours," Niall says. He cuts the engine on the jeep. 

"Ha, ha," Harry says, dryly. He climbs out of the jeep after Louis, and they start to head toward the church.

Niall tugs Louis aside before he can follow Harry inside, though. "You sure you're okay?" he asks, quietly. 

"You know," Louis says, beginning to smile. "I really think I am."

"So I don't have to come to your crappy-ass church for moral support anymore?" Niall asks, slinging an arm around Louis's shoulders. 

"Please, you love going to church with me," Louis says, ruffling Niall's hair. 

"Lies," says Niall. "And slander. You'll never prove it."

"Yeah, yeah," says Louis, and he drags Niall inside the building and down the aisle to where Harry is just scooting into a pew next to Liam and Taylor. "You're a good friend," he adds, as they sit down.

"Don't you ever forget it," Niall says.

Louis puts his hand down on the seat next to him, between Harry's legs and his own, and leaves it there until Harry notices and lets his own hand rest there, too. He inches his pinky finger over until it's touching Louis's; Louis smiles to himself in response. 

"Never will," he tells Niall.

+++

The service that day is more of an extended prayer of thanksgiving for the windfall of mystery money going such great lengths to lift the community out of its tragedy than a proper sermon. Louis pays full attention to it, for once, and the way Pastor Parrish kept reiterating that such a windfall could only be a miracle, a gift from God. Harry's hand and knee are pressed hot against his own the entire time.

Louis has never made any secret for his dislike of Pastor Parrish. He has often thought that he'd make a better preacher himself, even as untrained as he is, with no theology degrees or involvement to speak of, because at least he knows the Word of God backwards and forwards, and it's possible he could hate religion less if he were the one spreading messages around, maybe. But Pastor Parrish's effusive relief is palpable throughout the sanctuary, and it's next to impossible not to get on board.

After it's all over, Louis's mom comes up to him. "Honey, you ain't called in a few days," she says. "Everything all right?"

"Yeah, mama," he says. "Things are good." He pulls her into a hug. "I'll come over for supper tonight, okay?"

"See that you do," she says. "The twins have been asking about you."

"Which ones?"

She laughs and taps his nose. "Both sets," she says. "Niall, Taylor, Liam, you're invited too, of course."

"Thank you kindly, ma'am," says Niall. "My mama gets back today, though, and she's staying at my dad's till her driveway gets re-set, so I might need to provide a distraction."

Had Louis known about that? He's an awful friend, so wrapped up in Harry being back that he'd forgotten if Niall ever said anything. 

"Bring everyone," Louis's mom is saying. "We can have a party of it. Celebrate the end of the flood."

"Can, um." Louis clears his throat, a little awkwardly. "Can the Styles-Twist family come, too?"

Louis's mother's eyes fly up to his face, and she gives him a long, penetrating look. He inclines his head, ever-so-slightly. "If you want to invite them," she says, "Then I don't see why they can't come." Her gaze shifts to Harry, standing next to Louis. "Hey there, Harry. It's good to see you again."

To his credit, Harry doesn't mention all the times they've sat in the same church over the past five weeks. "You too, Mrs. Deakin," he says. "I'm sure my mom would love to make her macaroni salad."

"I do love Anne's macaroni salad," Louis's mom says. She smiles, and squeezes Louis's arm. "Wow! So much is happening lately. Flood's gone down, money's shown up, y'all are - well." She purses her lips, and moves on. "Did you hear that creepy old guy at the middle school cafeteria was fired?"

"Good riddance," Louis says, feelingly. "He had it coming."

"That he did," she agrees. "Well, I better go help Dan out with the kids. See you all tonight?"'

"We'll be there," Louis promises.

He's still so buoyed up on goodwill that he snags Taylor aside on their way through the parking lot. Harry, Liam, and Niall hang back, still within earshot.

"So," Louis says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Sorry about that weirdness a few days back, I dunno what came over us."

Taylor smiles. "It's fine," she says. "Everything's turning out well here in the end, isn't it?"

"S'pose so," says Louis. He takes a deep breath. It's not Taylor's fault that she makes everything around her feel weird, maybe. "So you wanna come to dinner at my mom's tonight?"

Taylor laughs a little, and casts a glance between Louis and Harry, who is hovering progressively closer to their conversation. "Unfortunately, my work here is done," she says, and gestures for the others to come closer. "I have come to like all of you very, very much, but I gotta go back home, now. I did what I came here to do. McCreary County's going to be okay, too. The money'll come in. All of y'all won't have any trouble building the houses back up and repairing the damage this fall."

"What?" Harry asks, frowning. "That doesn't make much sense."

"I'm real glad that letting you overhear that phonecall to my dad worked out in the end," Taylor says, tucking her hair back behind her ears. "It doesn't always." She frowns a little. "Though I do wish it hadn't made you pull away. I did like becoming friends with you."

Louis isn't sure that he particularly likes Taylor Swift. She's a friend, sure, at least to an extent, but he's always felt weird about her. So why is the news that she's leaving hitting him like this? He's confused, but he's also, quite frankly, bummed out. "Well," he says. "El's moving down there sooner or later. Maybe we could all catch up sometime? When we're visiting?"

"Wait, what?" Taylor asks, brow creasing slightly.

Harry steps in. "You said you were from Nashville, right?" he asks.

"Sure," says Taylor. She licks her red, red lips and exchanges a look with Niall over Louis's shoulder.

Okay, now Louis is officially completely confused. " _What_?"

Taylor squares her shoulders and crosses her arms, looking seriously at Harry first, and then at Louis. "Y'all are going to be just fine, okay? I can sense it. I don't need to hang around anymore."

Louis can't process this. "You said you were from Nashville," he says, dumbly.

"I've been, like, dropping hints for the past month about where I'm really from," Taylor says, laughing in disbelief. "I'm honestly shocked you two don't get it yet, what with your little sleuthing thing you threw together."

"To be fair, we didn't end up doing much sleuthing," Louis says. He's not even surprised at this point that Taylor seems to know about that.

"Can't you just tell us where you're really from?" Harry asks. Louis hasn't seen him frown this deeply since, well.

Since he accused him of having a thing for Taylor.

Taylor gives them this big, cheshire cat smile. "Where I come from only exists for those who truly believe," she says, mysteriously, and pushes between them to give Niall a big old hug. "Stay good, Horan."

"It's been a true honor to know you," he says, clapping her on the back, fingers spread wide and pressing in. 

"Louis," Taylor says, turning around once Niall releases her. "I want you to know that I think that God _does_ care. He's creative, though. He answers prayers that aren't destructive, but maybe not in the way you'd expect. Maybe not in the way you'd ask for. Maybe He works indirectly."

She winks at him, blows a kiss to the group, and walks off to her truck. Belatedly, Louis waves after her as she drives away; the others around him do the same. 

"That was abrupt," Harry says, frowning, shielding his eyes against the glare of the sweltering sun as her truck hits the middle distance.

There's a sudden, bright burst of light, almost like the sun has shifted position and gone right back, and by the time Louis blinks the flash away, Taylor's truck is gone, almost like it vanished. 

Almost like it was never there in the first place.

+++

"It's weird that all your crap is cleared out of my trailer," Louis says, lounging back on Niall's bed in Bobby's house. "I was just starting to get used to that freeze-dried shit."

"You're a liar, Louis Tomlinson," Niall says, laughing as he throws some more clothes in his duffle bag. "You hated every bite of it."

"I did," Louis admits. "Also those smelly-ass socks of yours."

"At least I _wear_ socks."

"Touché," says Louis. He balls up his paper towel, now void of Doritos, and lobs it in the general direction of Niall's trash can. It lands, precariously, on the edge, then tips in, and Louis whoops. 

"You're in a good mood, lately," Niall observes. With a wicked grin, he adds, "You're almost as fun as you were at the start of the summer."

"You're the biggest pain my ass has ever known," Louis tells him, rolling his eyes, but he can't tamp down on the grin that spreads across his face.

"I doubt that," says Niall. "Seeing as I keep seeing Harry literally everywhere you are. Work, home, church. Everywhere."

"Nah," Louis says. "We haven't done that yet. We're not even boyfriends, really. Just, like. Learning each other again." He scratches at a mosquito bite on his knee. "Maybe soon, though. Maybe real soon."

Niall nods. Suddenly serious, he says, "So are you gonna be okay without me when I'm in Lexington, back at UK?"

"I think so," Louis says, just as seriously. He debates going for the tired old joke he's told Niall every year, right before Niall leaves - that familiar 'at least I'll be rid of your ugly mug,' but he's starting to think that maybe it's nicer to have conversations that aren't completely recycled, lately. Instead, he settles on, "I'll miss you, though."

"Awww," says Niall, sincerely. He launches himself onto the bed, half on top of Louis, knee banging right into Louis's thigh, and drags him into a giant, wriggly hug. "Me too, brother."

That's the moment that Harry walks in, saying "The groundhogs are _seriously_ making breakfast out there." He stops short when he catches sight of Niall and Louis, rolling around on the bed, pinching each other and laughing. "Uh. Dare I ask?"

"Louis is a secret sap," Niall says, half-sitting. "Hey, Harry. What do you say?"

"What do you know, Niall," Harry says, heaving a very put-upon sigh, then grinning his hello. "Hey, Lou."

"Hi," says Louis, squirming until he's sitting up and able to receive Harry's greeting kiss. "Where've you been all morning?"

"Got a job," Harry says, grinning wider. He sits down on the bed next to Louis and Niall. "There was that empty cafeteria position at the middle school."

"Score," says Niall, holding his hand out for a high-five. 

"So you're really staying, then," Louis murmurs, mostly to himself.

Harry hears him. "I'm really staying," he says, seriously. "Got a job, signed up for some classes at the community college in Somerset, unpacked my suitcase and put it on that shelf in Mom's attic… you won't be able to get rid of me _that_ easily."

"Good," Louis says, and leans up for another quick kiss.

"You know what I don't get?" Harry says, pulling away and going to survey the pile of old textbooks Niall has out on his desk. "Taylor's been gone for like three days now and I still have no idea what she was talking about when she left."

"I know," Louis says, leaning forward. He's about to say more, but he's interrupted by Niall's raucous laughter.

"You idiots," he says, shaking his head. "She was hardly 'dropping hints' about the truth. She told us straight-up that she's an angel, like, a few days after she got here. She went back to Heaven, not fucking _Nashville_." At the dumbfounded look on both Harry's and Louis's faces, he adds, "Did you _seriously_ not cotton on?"

"Well, that just sounds ridiculous," Louis says, but his mind is flashing over all of the things Taylor had said: the cryptic comments about her dad being a judge, her begging for a miracle and saying that she literally caused the flood, everything she'd mentioned about God's approach to answering prayers…. Which, yikes. Thinking through the implications, Louis says, slowly. "That would mean that _she_ was the literal answer to my prayers. I don't buy it."

"Weird," Harry agrees.

"Haven't you noticed all those shitheads in the county are finally getting what's coming to them?" Niall asks. "God's will, brought about by Taylor."

"Still weird," Harry says, and Louis nods, but they both fall kind of quiet while Niall finishes packing after he throws his hands up in the air and mutters something unkind about their lack of open-mindedness. 

"Right," Niall says, once his duffel bags are full and his backpack is loaded. "I head out at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow, so. Shall we get Liam over here and make beautiful music tonight?"

"That sounds great," says Harry, feelingly, but Louis shakes his head.

"I've decided you can't go back to school, Niall," he says, matter-of-fact. "I'll miss you too much. You're the most important person in my life, brother; I can't have you living half the state away."

"Hey," Harry starts, frowning. "I thought-"

"That Niall is my best friend and favorite person?" Louis interrupts. He's not saying it to be cruel. He's saying it because it's true. Just because Harry's back and they're talking again and, apparently, still in love doesn't erase the three years Niall was there, growing closer and closer to Louis. "Me too."

"Are you getting sappy on me again?" Niall asks. "Don't do that. If you start to miss me, maybe actually come to one of those games I ask you to drive up for, for once."

"Fine," says Louis, rolling his eyes. "Guess we'll just have to make the most of tonight, then."

"Guess so," says Niall, and holds out his fist for a bump.

+++

Harry breaks the kiss and pulls back, panting, sweaty hair hanging down in his face. "Do you think we'll ever know the truth?" he asks.

Louis immediately understands that Harry is talking about Taylor again. She keeps coming up, here and there, as they try to process her bizarre departure and the bomb Niall dropped about who he thinks she is. 

The more they talk about it, though, the more Louis thinks Niall might be right. Certainty deep in his bones, he says, "I think maybe we already do."

"Yeah," Harry says. "Maybe." There's a faraway look on his face. Louis wants to bring him back to the present. 

He leans in and kisses Harry, deep, tongue stroking into Harry's mouth as he runs a hand up to Harry's shoulders, scratching at his skin on the way, and tugs him in closer. "Why are we even talking about this right now?" he murmurs. "Let's get back to business."

"Oh, yeah?" Harry says. "What business is that?"

Louis grabs Harry's hand and, heart pounding in his chest, brings it down to the front of his boxers. He's half-hard, the tip of his dick already getting a little damp from their wake-up make-out session. He can't stop thinking about how Harry's staying. Harry has a job and he's staying. Harry's taking college classes, but he's still staying. 

He's not going anywhere else. He doesn't _want_ to go anywhere else.

"Was thinking you could fuck me," Louis murmurs. He hadn't planned on suggesting it, not until Harry spent the night again, stripped down to his underwear since the heat outside is high and getting higher, and woke Louis up with deep, insistent kisses. Now he can't imagine doing anything else. "Or I could fuck you. Either way."

Harry rolls over, pulling Louis on top of him. "I can work with that," he whispers through a smile, and kisses Louis again. "But you said you haven't been able to since we - since I - well." He rests his hands on Louis's hips, thumbs dipping under the waistband of Louis's boxers. "Is there a way you'd be more comfortable with? For your first time in a long time?"

Louis considers. The thing is, before Harry left, they hadn't had a _lot_ of sex. It was hard to find a time and opportunity - they were both still living at home, in houses that were rarely completely empty. There had been hundreds of blowjobs and handjobs over the years, but only a handful of times with actual penetration. 

Back then, Louis was the experienced one. He'd mostly been the one fucking Harry, which he had loved. He can count on one hand the number of times Harry had fucked him, and still have fingers left over.

To his memory, he'd loved that even more, though. 

"I want you," he says, finally, rolling his hips down against Harry's, the blunt tip of his thickening cock poking through the gap in the front of his boxers and rubbing against Harry's stomach. "Inside me. But if I change my mind we switch and it's okay."

"Deal," Harry whispers, pushing himself up to kiss Louis once more, biting at Louis's lower lip until Louis gasps with the sensation, the way it feels like every nerve in his body is on fire, like all the heat from the air outside is coming from his own heart. "I love you."

Louis lowers down until his chest is flush against Harry's, their hard dicks trapped together between them. "Love you too," he says, reaching down to tug Harry's boxers lower. "Get these off."

"Get yours off," Harry says, moving a hand back and giving Louis's ass a generous squeeze. "And then, I guess - condoms. And lube."

"There's a bottle of Jergens Ultra under the bed," Louis says. "I haven't exactly had a lot of reason to go out and buy lube."

"And the condoms?"

"I do have some of those." Louis hadn't intended to be celibate for three years, not at the very beginning of everything. The condoms shouldn't be expired yet. "And they are lubricated."

"Okay," Harry says, and kisses Louis on the corner of the mouth, then leans up and in a little further to lave at Louis's earlobe, alternately licking and nibbling. "I can work with that."

"Good." Louis hoists himself up and shoves his boxers down unceremoniously before leaning under the bed to grab the things. When he straightens back up, Harry is fully naked with one hand wrapped around his cock, boxers in a little pile at the edge of the bed. The sun streaming in through the slats in the blinds lays bright stripes across Harry's chest, highlighting his tattoos and his extra nipples alike.

Louis's mouth goes dry.

"You're so fucking gorgeous," he whispers, dropping the lotion and a condom packet on the twisted-up sheets and climbing up onto the bed. His cock is hanging heavy between his legs, swaying with his movements as he crawls the scant few inches up and over till he's kneeling at Harry's side. He swings one leg over, so that he's straddling Harry, and then, quick as a wink, drops down flat.

Harry wheezes, hands automatically coming up around Louis and clutching him around his back. "Jesus," he says, chuckling a little. "You menace."

"Do not bring the son of God into our bedroom, Harry," Louis lectures, and he leans down to lick a stripe over Harry's jutting collarbone. Harry's skin is salty from sweat, and warm to the touch.

Harry gasps. "Fine," he says, fingers digging in hard. Then he's rolling them over again. They crash into the wall, a little, have to fumble around until Harry is lying on top again, legs between Louis's, dick pushing insistently at Louis's ballsack.

"Touch me," Louis says. His voice comes out a whine, but he pushes past it. "Fuck me."

"As you wish," Harry says, fumbling for the lotion. He slicks up his fingers and nudges Louis's legs apart, brushing his fingers against Louis's crack until Louis huffs out a breath and grinds down, trying to get Harry to hurry up.

Grinning, Harry circles Louis's hole. He props himself up on his free arm and stares down at Louis's face, glancing occasionally toward Louis's cock and his own hand, disappearing below, and pushes the tip of his finger in.

Louis gasps, grinding down against Harry's finger. It's been _so_ long. He feels _so_ good.

"You got tight," Harry observes, pushing his finger in deeper and wiggling it around.

"It's been three fucking years, dipshit, of course I got tight," Louis says. He's feeling so ecstatically full. His mouth feels cold, though, even in the heat of the air, spit drying around it, so he cranes up for a kiss.

Harry leans in gladly, immediately nuzzling at the seam of Louis's lips with his teeth. "Shush," he says, pushing a second finger in.

God. Louis doesn't remember this feeling _this_ good, but Harry's pressing his fingers in in little tight circles, beckoning forward so that his fingertips nudge up against Louis's prostate just _so_. It's all he can do to keep from crying out - even moreso when Harry manages to fit a third of his wide, wide fingers with their even-wider knuckles inside. 

"Fuck me," he catches himself mumbling, frantically and repeatedly. "Fuck me, fuck me, inside please."

"As you wish," Harry says again, and he pulls back to rip the condom package open with his teeth. Louis grimaces at the sudden emptiness when Harry has to withdraw his hand to grip the base of his cock as he rolls the condom on, but before he can even begin to complain, Harry is leaning over him again, reaching down to press his index finger to the edge and help guide his cock in.

Louis had forgotten how this felt, too, Harry's thick cock firm and practically splitting him open. He grabs his own knee to help push his legs wider apart, rolling his hips up toward Harry until Harry's pressing in so nicely, thighs shaking as he pushes in, again and again.

"Touch yourself," Harry mumbles, between thrusts. "Can't - if I try to get my hand up there, I'll collapse onto you."

"Fine," Louis says, working a hand between their bodies and pushing down hard on his dick, pressing it flat against his stomach, letting the jolts of Harry's short, deep thrusts provide the friction he needs, precome making the drag against his stomach slick and warm and _good_.

"Not gonna last," says Harry. His thrusts are growing wilder, less steady, and as he captures Louis's mouth in another bite, he groans around his teeth, pushing as deep as he can before he bottoms out and falls still, coming into his condom.

"Suck me," Louis says, frantically. He's so close. He's so close, and he wants to come, wants some other person to bring him to orgasm for the first time in forever. Wants it to be Harry, in particular, who does it.

Harry nods, just as frantically. He pulls out and kisses Louis once more. Not even bothering to take off the condom, he shoves his fingers back into Louis and slides down Louis's body, taking Louis's leaking cock into his mouth.

Harry's mouth is so hot, so wet, and his tongue feels _so good_ licking up the vein on the underside of Louis's dick that it just takes one twist of his fingers, coupled with pressing the tip of his tongue flat against the head of Louis's cock, for Louis to come with a shout, jizz flooding into Harry's mouth. The sun, already bright, grows brighter around them. Louis is dazzled by it. The light doesn't seem to fade even when Louis squeezes his eyes shut. Ridiculously, in the height of the throes of his orgasm, Louis thinks that it's God - or maybe Taylor - cheering for them from heaven.

Well. That's weird.

He opens his eyes again in time to see a little of his jizz dribble out of Harry's mouth when he pulls away. Harry wipes it off with the back of his hand as Louis pulls him in to kiss him deep, tasting himself on Harry's tongue. 

"That was fun," Louis says, once he manages to remember how to string words together.

"Some might even say a religious experience," Harry says. His face is buried into Louis's neck, so it comes out as more of a mumble than anything. 

Louis is tempted to ask if Harry thought he saw God, too, but he decides against it. "We're so gross," he says, running a hand slickly down his sweaty chest. 

"I know," Harry says, delightedly. He presses a kiss to Louis's jawbone, eyes fluttering closed. "Love you."

"Love you, too," Louis says. He wraps an arm around Harry and pulls him in tight. "I'm glad you came back."

Louis can feel Harry's grin against his skin. "So," says Harry. "When are we building that cabin out here?"

Louis pauses, fingers still stroking against Harry's flushed skin. "I think maybe this time we should take it slow," he says, seriously. "Like, we're already getting to know each other again, and focusing on that, but I think we should _really_ make it a point to focus on that. Relearn each other, you know? Relearn how to talk nicely to each other instead of resorting to passive-aggressive insults, or whatever, when one of us gets mad. For example, me."

Harry pulls back a little. His grin is brilliant, and something inside Louis's heart softens and settles. "I can work with that," he says, and leans in to kiss Louis, deep and slow. "Anyway," he adds, pulling back again. "We gotta take the time to save up enough that the cabin can be a real mansion, anyway."

Louis laughs, but his laughter cuts off when he catches sight of the time. "Fuck," he says. "We missed church, with all that, like, sun-dappled sex or whatever."

Harry snuggles up against Louis, resting his head on Louis's shoulder and taking one of Louis's hands in his own, playing with his fingers. "I'm okay with that if you are," he says, cautiously.

"I guess," Louis says. Thinking about it, though, he finds that he really doesn't actually mind, this time. "I think I worshipped enough in my own way, anyway," he adds. "Thanked God for ignoring all my fucking prayers just now. Or, if Taylor's right, for answering them in His own weird, divine way. I guess."

"Actually," Harry says, and Louis perks up even though he's so satisfied and relaxed he's inches away from sleep. "I think I know what you mean."

Louis stares down at Harry in shock. "Do you mean…" he starts.

Harry shrugs. "Taylor raised some questions in me," he says, simply. "I don't think I necessarily _don't_ believe? Maybe?"

"We can start talking blueprints on my birthday," Louis tells him. He can't bring himself to look away from Harry, and Harry's earnest, honest eyes. He doesn't even want to try. "After my first birthday shot. If things are still going well then - if we're boyfriends, and our relationship is _truly_ working out well, we can start deciding what and where we build."

Harry takes a long time before he replies. Brow wrinkled in thought, mouth moving silently, he taps his fingers against Louis's hips for a full two minutes before he nods. "Yeah," he says. "I think that's wise."

"So," Louis says, stifling a yawn. "We have a deal?"

"It's a deal," Harry agrees, and seals it with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> my jewish-appalachian-kentuckian ass used an english translation of the tanakh instead of one of the bible for pretty much every quote in here (except obvi for the new testament ones), so if you're familiar with the verses quoted here and the wording of any of them doesn't make sense to you then.... that's probably why ("lmnop, if ur jewish, why do you always write christian kentucky!louis stories" "well, friend, i too grew up in these parts so i feel like i got the christian experience by proxy" "did you even know that isaiah comes AFTER song of songs in the bible" "i most definitely did not realize that until last week, no.")
> 
> also, there were a ton of easter eggs for the other kentucky!louis fic (i.e., novena 1.0; i.e., pray till i go blind) in here? because i guess it's the same universe except louis exists twice within it, with different outcomes but similar beginnings or whatever. let me know if you caught them! also, imagine pray till i go blind!harry-the-demon and neither can floods drown!taylor-the-angel hanging out at the water cooler in the cosmic office. amazing. if i ever write a companion piece to either of these fics, it'll be that.
> 
> can you BELIEVE that when i first started to write this, it was supposed to be a 10k-max smutty little fic about louis-the-believer-who-hates-religion and harry-the-nonbeliever-who-loves-it both falling in love with taylor-the-avenging-angel and then all three of them doing the sex together? the original summary was going to be "ISAIAH 10:1-4 and ISAIAH 34:1-10 meet STYLE by TAYLOR SWIFT, feat. the SWORD OF GOD filled with blood, gorged with fat, wearing its good girl faith and a tight little skirt and SMITING those who enact unjust decrees and draft oppressive legislation to deprive the impoverished of justice. Or something." so..... it's kind of that? but mostly not? crazy how things change as you go along!
> 
> in conclusion, "missionary work does more harm than good": i know that and you know that but does small town harry know that? probs not! at least he didn't join the world race amirite. 
> 
> A N Y W A Y! thank you all SO MUCH for reading! i really hope you liked it :) please comment and tell me your thoughts!!
> 
> as a reminder, there's a ficmix [here](http://8tracks.com/dulosis/waters-cannot-quench) that i think really exemplifies the tone of the story. 
> 
> i'm [dulosis @ tumblr](http://dulosis.tumblr.com); there's a rebloggable post for the fic [here](http://dulosis.tumblr.com/post/151582204506/title-neither-can-floods-drown-author) and a working tag for fic-related posts [here](http://dulosis.tumblr.com/tagged/novena-2.0).


End file.
